Brothers Act I
by William McKinney
Summary: How strong is a brother's love? Michael and Patrick are Spartan II's fighting the massive Covenant Juggernaut, but when Michael is captured, Patrick will do whatever he can to find his brother and bring him back alive.
1. Chapter 1

**Brothers**

**Part I**

_

ERIDANUS II, EARLY 2530

The First time Spartan-022 Patrick had seen a Grunt, had been through the scope of a sniper rifle. The little methane breathing creature had been sleeping, surrounded by a few hundred of its brethren. A platoon and a half of marines were slowly making their way towards the sleeping creatures, in hopes of catching them off guard. It was a solid plan, and all of the marines on this op' were carrying suppressed weapons.

"We're a go in three…two…one" The Voice carried quietly through his ear piece, and he smiled, the suppressed SRS99-C pressed firmly against his shoulder. He watched the first gaggle of grunts get torn apart by SMG fire from the attacking marines; the small creatures stood absolutely zero chance.

Unfortunately, one of the little buggers had woken up, and upon seeing his fellow aliens getting slaughtered, had quickly raised the alarm, waking the hundreds of other sleeping aliens in a fraction of a second. The Marines just didn't have enough ammo.

"Fall back, fall back!" Came the call over the comm., major Davenport was ordering a full retreat, too little too late. The awakened grunts began tearing into the marines with an unexpected ferocity. They must have gone crazy seeing their friends and comrades murdered like this, and with these kinds of numbers, they easily surrounded the marines.

Patrick had fired until he was out of ammo, supporting the marines as long as he could, but there were just too many aliens in the area. They outnumbered the marines and quickly overwhelmed the men, with only four marines managing to escape into the forest.

They were followed by the little buggers, but they'd been rescued by Major Davenport when he'd showed up with two Warthogs loaded with soldiers. They'd poured fire into the forest until the marines had managed to get on the vehicles, holding on wherever they could, and the vehicles sped off, leaving several hundred pissed off grunts in their wake.

Davenport's guerilla campaign against the covenant was not faring well, the forests of Eridanus II were overrun with covenant forces, and they'd almost found the Major's base of operations, an old army bunker deep in the forest that had been decommissioned years ago after Eridanus was no longer necessary as a military outpost. The Bunker sported a pair of heavy doors that when shut allowed the base to survive an almost direct nuclear attack.

Patrick wasn't sure why the covenant hadn't just glassed Eridanus yet, but the Major was sure they were searching for something. They wouldn't be getting any back up anytime soon either, seeing as the human fleet had been beaten back. They were currently hiding behind one of Eridanus's moons, and the remains of the fleet hardly boasted more than a pair of destroyers, a prowler, and three frigates. The leader of this small group, Rear Admiral Pressley, had assured them that they'd be pulled out as soon as they'd finished enacting repairs. That was a week and a half ago.

"Man, I feel like we're never gonna get off this damn planet." Patrick turned to the other man he was retreating through the forest with, Corporal Andrew Perez. Perez was also a sniper, and though he'd been a little intimidated by the Spartan early on, he'd come to enjoy his company, finding him just as human as anyone else you'd meet in the corp.

"Perez." Patrick said quietly, and the marine looked at him.

"Yeah, big guy?" He asked, and Patrick smiled inside his helmet.

"You bitch too much." This won a chuckle from the marine, who then slid a magazine into his MA5B.

"I know."

___

Spartan-021, Michael, Crouched low in the tall grasses of an open plain. He could hear the Elites, actively searching the large field. They knew someone was here, but they weren't sure where.

_I bet they don' know about the Helljumpers either, but tha's a secret._ He thought quietly, absentmindedly turning his head slightly to the tree line. Up in most of the trees facing the elites hid a platoon of ODST's, all waiting for his signal. Michael grabbed one of the red flares of his belt, pulling the cap off and exposing its striker.

He counted to three, heard an Elite growl four meters from his position, and he ignited the flare, throwing it over hand towards the elites position. The burning tube of chemicals burned bright red, and it landed in the grass behind the elites. They all growled and turned towards it, except for the ones who had seen him throw it.

They ran forward, weapons in hand, shouting cries of "Demon!"

He smiled, and rose from his crouch, already firing with the assault rifle in his hands. _Two on the left, one on the right. Piss poor odds for the elites._ He thought, as he handled the assault rifle one handed, using the other to rime and throw a frag grenade at the single elite behind him. He continued to fire, even as he brought his other hand around to grip the front hand-grip on the rifle.

Where he had thrown the flare glowed brightly, and he could hear the sound of two SkyHawk jump-jets, the V-TOL fighters were drawing closer, already prepping their ordinance for the drop.

Michael continued to fire, but activated his comm. as well. "Bravo two-six, this is Spartan zero twenty-two, be aware, fire mission danger close."

"Roger that Spartan, hold tight. Bravo two-six, fox one away, fox two away." These words were mirrored by the second SkyHawk, Bravo two-seven, and four missiles streaked away from the fighters, flying at high speeds towards the ground. The Scorpion Anti-tank missiles could gut a main battle tank like nobody's business, and the elites on the ground fared little better.

Four explosions rocked the ground, the over pressure knocked the Spartan of his feet, and Michael landed bodily on the ground, as the two surviving elites he'd been firing at were torn apart by flying shrapnel.

"You will...not sur...survive this human." One said after Michael had gotten up, and walked over to inspect the corpses. It was still alive for the next ten seconds as Michael freed his sidearm from its docking plate on his thigh and the Spartan delivered his carefully worded rebuke with a single 12.7mm round to the face.

"You keep tellin' yourself that." He said, returning the pistol to its spot. He retrieved his MA5 off the ground; the assault rifle was still in good condition, though its electronics were a little damaged. It couldn't decide if the magazine was full or half empty. "Helljumpers, we're done here, full back to position Alpha, I'll meet you there."

"What the hell happened Mike, I thought you said you'd leave some for us?" One of the Helljumpers, Private Mathew Dalton asked. The Spartan chuckled quietly, and said,

"The flyboys were paying me more for the kills; I'm getting double rations from them."

"Bastards are stealin' all the killin'." He heard from another over the comm., and he met this with a hearty laugh.

"That they are."

___

The bunker, position alpha, was set into the side of a large hill, which had been grown over by trees and all manner of underbrush. The doors were moss covered, and there wasn't much clear space around the entrance. This section of forest was patrolled by dozens of marine patrols, and the most open space around here was reserved for Pelican landings. There was another position, the Bravo site, twenty two Kilometers north of here, far from Covenant territory, where an airfield was located.

Its marine complement consisted of fifty five marines, and there were some twenty pilots on base to pilot the various aircraft located there. It was Major Davenport's fallback position, in case the shit hit the fan here at Alpha. They had six SkyHawks there, as well as ten Pelican D77H's, the backup ones on permanent standby to evacuate the Alpha site.

Alpha had six Pelicans in service at the moment, with two inside the base being repaired. The main door pretty much opened up to a hangar, which had the pelicans in it, as well as twelve Warthog LRV's, and four Scorpion MBT's. Doors in the back of the hangar lead to the armories and barracks. Behind the barracks was an elevator that dropped down eight stories to the major's command center.

On top of the base was a large relay, nearly thirty years old, covered with moss and surrounded by trees. It was how they were communicating with the remnants of the fleet in orbit.

Patrick sauntered down a long hallway that lead to the mess, adjacent to the barracks, and stopped short of entering. The room was nearly packed elbow-to-ass in there, many of the bases marines were in t-shirts and there BDU pants.

At the front of the room stood two men, instantly recognizable as Spartans, and they were apparently squaring off. Patrick rubbed his temples with his hands, and walked through the crowd, shouldering past hundreds of service men and women. _I swear to good guys._ He thought, looking at Michael and Spartan-132 David.

"What are you idiots doing now?" he asked, and the two looked over at him and smiled.

"Friendly sparing match and these people around you have payed good money and placed large bets on this, so please don' interrupt." Michael, Patrick's brother. Not brother in terms of one Spartan too another, but his actual twin brother. Patrick shook his head, listening to his brother's explanation, and hearing around the thick Irish accent natural to those who came from Beta Centauri.

They didn't look alike, but most fraternal twins didn't. Patrick raised his hands in defeat and walked out of the room quickly. Before he left, Michael called out,

"Please don' tell Elli." And Patrick looked back, shrugging like there was nothing he could do.

"Oh, I'm tellin' 'er." He left the room with Michael looking angry, but he wasn't paying attention to his more immediate problem, and David quickly threw a hard left punch, which sent the other Spartan sprawling.

"Hey, that was a cheap shot!"

____

Major Gerald Davenport looked through a list of tactical analysis of the current set up of the covenant. They had their forces concentrated to the south, the general set up leaving them in a wide circle around and area of forest that they'd been…defoliating. The forest had been devastated in a perfect kilometer circle, and it was obvious that they were digging for something. Davenport didn't care what they wanted; he was going to make sure they didn't find it.

"Spartans zero twenty-one, twenty-two, fifty-five, and one thirty-two, please report to my office ASAP." He released the button for his inter-base comm. system, and sat back, reading through the information one more time.

The knock on the door came just as he finished the last sentence of the report. "Enter." He shouted, and the four Spartans, each of them easily averaging seven feet tall, walked in wearing just BDU's. They preferred to be out of their armor when around the base he had learned.

"Reporting as ordered sir." One said, Twenty-one, Michael. They stood at stiff attention, waiting for him to reply.

"At ease Spartans, we have a new mission for you." One of them, the woman, Spartan-055, Elisabeth, or Elli, as the others called her, smiled slightly. David and her had not been on the last op', and they were itching for some action. "You're going to be going in to recon the covenants mining activity, and sabotage it. They're digging for something, and I'm feeling a bit left out, wouldn't you agree chief?"

Patrick nodded, and asked the question on everyone's minds. "So when are we movin' out sir!"

"As soon as you're all good to go." He waved a hand, dismissing them, and they all saluted sharply, and turned abruptly on one heel, leaving the room at the exact same time, in perfect form.

Davenport would never get over how well the Spartans could follow each other's movements.

____

"What are ya doin' now?" Patrick asked, watching Michael take a permanent marker to their Fury Tactical nuke. It had a one megaton yield, very clean, with an effective range of 1.2 kilometers. Perfect for the given situation.

"Check this out." He held up the nuclear grenade, the size and shape of an overinflated football. He had written "From Reach with love" on the side of it, and Elli grabbed the nuke, saying simply,

"Let me try." She quickly wrote out, "Remember harvest" on the side of it, and David took it next.

"My turn." He added "Humanity says hello" to it, and smiled smugly at his creation. He offered the nuclear weapon up to Patrick, who took it and the marker slowly, trying to think of an appropriate saying for the device. He thought about it for a few moments before applying his saying to the side of the bomb, scrawling out the words, "For Samuel," on the side of it.

"Short, sweet, and to the point, I like it." Elli said, admiring the words. "A remembrance fitting of a Spartan" she commented, handing the bomb back to Michael. The Pelican they were in was decelerating, as it began to lower itself into the forest. The back lowered and the Spartans disembarked, watching the vehicle ascend back up into the air, before disappearing amongst the tree tops.

"Alright, let's get moving." Michael said. The Spartans were all carrying the gear they'd chosen specifically for this mission. Michael had the nuke connected to his belt by a thick cord, and an M90 across his back. A suppressed MA5C was in his hands, and the rest of his gear was hooked to the other side of his belt within a drawstring bag.

Elli carried an M7s, the suppressed SMG was good for close quarter's engagement, and the sight on it made it good for use up to medium ranges. A second one was connected to her thigh, and an M6D was on the other side, the large explosive handgun had been created "up-sized" for Spartan use.

David carried an MA5B; the older assault rifle carried double the amount of bullets as the MA5C. His pack contained most explosives used in the UNSC arsenal, including Lotus anti-tank landmines and C7 foaming explosive.

Patrick had an SRS99-C customized to his liking, in his hands, and an MA5 on his back. The M6C SOCOM was strapped to his leg; the thigh holster it was in was only there because the magnetic plate on that side was malfunctioning. He kept the suppressed M6 around mostly out of remembrance for a squad of ODST's he had worked with, the brave men and women of the squad had been killed by a pack of grunts, after they'd been captured by elites. He'd tried to rescue them, but by the time he got there, the little bastards had already devoured the squad. He had killed every covenant soldier there.

"You got it boss." Elli said, following him, while the other formed up. They walked through the forest, maintaining intense radio silence, as they began approaching their target. The night had been creeping up on them for the past two hours, and now its darkness was total.

They made their way to a cliff edge and stopped, staring down into the expansive abyss. The covenant had dug an enormous hole into the planets crust, it must have been at least a few thousand feet deep, and at its bottom were what appeared to be ancient ruins. They weren't human, and from what Patrick could tell form what he'd seen, they weren't Covenant either.

"Holy…" David said, sucking in a breath.

"Yeah." Elli agreed. They all felt that feeling of being overwhelmed. Michael recovered first, turning to Patrick,

"Find a spot to cover us, we're going in." Above the hole, several flights of banshees flew, patrolling the area. "Don't get caught by a Covenant patrol." He said, before securing a repelling line around the base of an enormous tree.

"Think it'll be enough cord?" David asked, gesturing to the line. Michael nodded, as he secured a clip to the line.

"No, but I'll get us somewhat down there." David nodded and thought quietly for a moment, before saying,

"Will it hold all of our weight?"

"It's the new stuff that they just made 'specially for us; it'll hold a hell of a lot more than that." They clipped on, and Michael went first, repelling down into the massive pit, quickly followed by the others. They left Patrick there, and he moved into the woods that circled the kilometer wide hole, until he found a suitable sniping spot.

He laid out his gear, setting up a mat to lie upon. He fitted a suppressor to his SRS, and set up its Oracle scope, linking it into his HUD and to the small computer. He connected a computerized Spotting scope to the small laptop, and linked it to his HUD as well, before lying down on the mat and slowing his breath to slow breaths.

"Showtime."

_____

Michael made a swift chopping motion with his hand, and in the blink of an eye, the three Spartans neutralized a covenant patrol. They'd gone as far as they could with the rope, but eventually they'd had to slide down the rest of the way. Luckily, the wall of the pit gradually sloped out, turning the straight incline into a ramp, and turning the pit into a bowl.

They policed the jackal's shields, attaching the units to their forearms. The devices always came in handy in a firefight. The covenant had shields, and the Spartans didn't, so the jackal shield generators worked to even out that little bit of warfare.

They moved forward at a run, they really needed to move by this point, because when those grunts and jackals didn't report in, or the bodies were found, security would get a hell'uva lot tighter around here.

"Aarrgg!" Michael looked up as an elite came flying out of the darkness, bright blue plasma sword clutched in his hands. He came flying downwards, armed posed out to strike the unprepared Spartan. He went to raise his rifle, but realized a second too late that he'd never get it up in time. He froze up, for a split second.

But then the Elite was sent flying backwards, a dark blue hole appearing in the front of its face, the elites face practically disintegrated from the force of a rifle round. Michael looked down at the creature for a second, taking a deep breath to shake the attack off. _I really thought I was about to die._ He thought, shaking his head. It was an enlightening experience. He picked the Elite plasma sword up off the ground, and continued moving, leaving the body where it was.

Elli took point, her M7s held up to her shoulder. There were more Covenant here, all around them; they just hadn't run into them yet.

Michael looked towards their target, a massive oval shaped structure reaching out of the center of the hole. It was deep violet, the covenant digging machine. It was illuminated by several large lights, that shined n it at all times, and Michael was sure that it was surrounded by hundreds of the covenant bastards.

Elli led them forward until she held up a hand to stop. They were inside one of the ruins, a building that was just a stone dome held up by massive pillars. There were crumbling walls between them, and plenty of holes to look out of. They came to one of these holes and looked through, surprised by the amount of covenant activity on the other side.

The digging platform sat in the center of a depression in the ground, ten feet deeper than the rest of the pit around it, and covenant Elites swarmed all over the structure. They were backed up by strange floating aliens, which appeared to be balloons of either a pink or purplish color.

"Alright, David, flank around to the left side of the depression and flash your green ready light when you're there. Elli same thing, except go to the right side. We're gonna storm in, kill anything that gets in our path, plant the damn nuke, and get out of there." They both nodded and checked their weapons and ammo before jogging off into the darkness of the ruins.

____


	2. Chapter 2

_

**Brothers **

**Part II**

_

ERIDANUS II, EARLY 2530

The night exploded in screams and flying shrapnel. The first things anyone would notice form it was the sudden lack of light, and then the night lit up again from flying plasma fire, explosions, and sudden muzzle flashes.

Michael sprinted across the open ground, and jumped, sliding down into the ten foot pit surrounding the massive drilling machine. They'd destroyed the Covenants massive spotlights, plunging the entire area into darkness so complete that he couldn't even see the outline of the ruins anymore. The only thing he could come close to making out was the massive drill.

_Use your night vision you morn._ He thought to himself indignantly. He switched it on, his interior visor lighting up a ghostly green. Everything came into view, the machine, the ruins, the elite running straight towards him…

He brought up the assault rifle and sprayed, letting off the entire magazine into the elites sprinting form. His shield sputtered and faded, before dissipating complete. The elite dropped to the ground, his body riddled with bullet holes, dark blood spraying in all directions. He kept running, not even stopping to slide in a fresh magazine.

He saw another set of muzzle flashes, bullets from Elli's M7 for sure, the distinct noise of them, even when they were suppressed, was easily distinguishable. He heard an M90 go off, the shotgun booming across the area, and he smiled. David at work.

He kept running until he was directly beneath the structure, and looked around. He spotted a pile of covenant shipping crates, and ran up to one, popping the lid. He chucked the Fury TAC Nuke inside, and ran as fast as he could to the far wall of the pit. He quickly scaled the ten foot incline, and chinned his comm.

"Spartans, we are leaving! Move your asses let's go!" He sprinted into the ruins of this ancient culture, and kept going as fast as he could. David and Elli were waypoints on his HUD, showing their approximate positions. He ran into a room of one of the ancient buildings, and stopped.

A glowing sphere, perhaps six inches in diameter, was floating in the center of some covenant device, and it was surrounded six elites. They all turned towards him, but before they activate their energy shields, he'd already drawn his M6D and executed four of them, dropping them in rapid succession, barely taking a fraction of a second. The other two charged, one coming from his left side, and the second leaping over the covenant device and coming straight at him.

He ducked the one from the side and drew his combat knife, sinking the blade to the hilt in the elite's neck, killing him almost instantly. The second one landed a hard blow on his chest plate and sent him flying backwards into a wall, cracking the hard stone.

The Elite ignited an energy sword, and ran at him, blade raised. Michael kicked out, his foot connecting with the Elite abdomen, a solid hit that forced the elite to drop to his knees, losing the energy sword in the process.

The elite could only watch as the Spartan pulled the knife out of his fallen brother and bring it to bear on him.

Michael stepped back, a sizable pool of dark purple blood forming at his feet. He walked over to the sphere, it was the same dark stone as the ruins, but it had an odd glow to it, and it was covered in all manner of strange glyphs. He slid the strange sphere into his mesh bag connected to his belt, and stepped out of the room. David and Elli's waypoints were already at the cliff side, he was running late. He ran at a full sprint, leaving whatever covenant was coming after him in the dust.

He made it to the cliff side in record time, and began scaling the rope. He could see the forms of Elli and David above him, climbing the rope. He continued up, but paused for a moment when a plasma bolt slammed into the cliff next to him, disintegrating rock there. He began climbing faster.

"You've got covenant on your ass, hurry it up." The voice was Patrick's, loud and clear over the comm. he heard the sniper rifle fire, and knew that'd be one less covenant to worry about. He continued up, one hand over the other, pushing his way up. And then he hit a snag. A lucky plasma round slammed into the rope several feet above him, melting through the strong cord easily, leaving him hanging by a thread. _You've gotta be kidding me! _He thought, and reached up a hand to pull himself above the melted cord.

Too late, the cord snapped, sending him plummeting downwards into the horde of awaiting covenant.

"Michael!" Patrick yelled, and he heard him over the radio and outside. Michael hit the ground hard, his helmet bouncing off a rock. It hurt, the fall. He knew nothing was broken, but for a moment, he was stunned, and that's all the Covenant forces needed.

They swarmed the downed Spartan, grabbing easily enough. "Michael!" Patrick yelled again, but David and Elli were over the edge now, holding him back from going to rescue his brother. "Michael!"

The Covenant forces dragged him back into the ruins, back towards the drilling machine. And that's when Patrick saw it, the massive whale like object. It was a Covenant cruiser, and it had released dropships.

A pair of Seraph fighters strafed their position, spraying the cliff top with plasma fire as the three Spartans ducked down, staying low. Patrick watched a drop ship land, and then moments later lift off, no doubt carrying his brother within it. "No…no, no, no Dammit!" he shouted.

The dropship ascended, entering one of the Cruisers hangars, and disappearing from sight completely.

"We have to go after them!" Patrick said, standing up. The others shook their head.

"Too dangerous, what's acceptable, one MIA Spartan, or four?" David asked. He pointed up at the cruiser. "There are hundreds of Covenant soldiers on board that ship; we'd never survive that kind of onslaught."

"Think Patrick god Dammit, what would Michael want you to do right now." He thought about that for a moment, before whispering his answer. "What?" Elli asked, not hearing him.

"He'd want to detonate the nuke." He said his head down.

"Exactly, let's get the hell out of here and do just that." The moved off into the forest, making their way to the designated LZ. It was another clear cut section of forest, and a single pelican was waiting for them when they arrived.

"Climb aboard, we need to move." The pilot said. The horizon was starting to brighten up, the skies going from black to dark grey, and then light grey, as Patrick stared of into the distance behind them.

The Covenant cruiser was just a speck now, floating in the distance, when David raised the detonator in his hands. In the distance, the brightening horizon got a little bit brighter, as two suns rose at the same time.

____

The alpha site was silent for most of the next day; the news of a dead Spartan was draining on morale, and had still managed to circulate the entire base. Patrick found himself receiving sympathetic glances from almost everyone he saw.

They generally stayed out of his way, and he was fine with that, the thought of his brother being dead was almost too much to bear and he did it the only way he could, by cutting everything else out of the picture. He wasn't speaking to anyone, and he refused to be told that there was nothing he could have done.

Couldn't he have taken the shot that would have killed which ever covenant bastard had fired the shot that had sealed his brother's fate? He was his cover, and he felt that it was his responsibility that his brother was gone.

With these thoughts in mind, he was like this when Elli found him later that night, standing in the armory. He was standing around, in full MJOLNIR armor, and duel under-arm shoulder holster, both with M6D's in them. He had a shotgun on his back, a pair of SMG's on his thigh plates. He had a duffle bag slung over one shoulder, and he held his SRS99-Cs in his hands.

"What are you doing?" She asked, watching him load up.

"Whatever I have to." He walked out of the room quickly, but she followed after him, not letting up.

"You're going against everything Mendez ever taught you." She said solemnly, following his footsteps perfectly. David poked his head out of a door, the marines he was with inside were sitting around a folding table, a deck of cards sat there, as well as a pool of cigarettes, cigars, music disks, and someone's nickel plated firearm.

"What's he doing?" David asked, watching them walk by.

"Something stupid." She said, following him. She heard David with the room, his voice ringing off the walls.

"Well, boys, I gotta' attend to this, so I'll just be taking my winnings…" She heard scuffling n the room, and several marine voices.

"lyin' bastard!"

"Friggin' Cheater"

"Son of a bitch!"

And David came running out into the hallway, his arms piled with the supposed "winnings". He followed them up to the main hangar, where the Major stood, tapping his foot.

"Spartan oh twenty-two, what exactly do you think you're doing?" he had a fairly passive face on, and he had a case by his side.

"Sir, I'm gonna' do whatever it takes to avenge my brother." He stared hard at the Major, he wouldn't back down, and this was something he had to do, for himself. _Please don't try to get in my way major_. He thought to himself.

"You familiar with the works of Sun Tzu?" The major asked.

"A little bit sir, why?"

"He once said, "If you're going to embark on a journey of revenge, dig two graves." Do you get what I'm sayin' to you son?" Patrick nodded.

"I do sir, but that isn't going to stop me. I _have _to do this." The major nodded, and kicked the case over to him; it was a silver metal case, and Patrick bent down to retrieve it. He popped the clasps on it, and opened it, his eyes widening with amazement. It was a second Fury TAC Nuke. "Sir?" he asked.

"Kill all son's a bitches. Consider it your standing orders. We've been givin' orders to pull out; by tomorrow there won't be any humans on Eridanus. Save yourself. From what you've told me, that's your general plan."

"Yes sir." The major nodded, and began walking away.

"I'm leaving you a single pelican, if I were you; I'd make sure you had a way to get back to Reach. Good luck and Godspeed." He walked away, disappearing down the long hallway that led to his command center.

He turned to Elli and David. "Goodbye guys, thanks for your help, hopefully I'll see you again." He began walking, when Elli shouted out,

"If you die, I'll kill you!"

____

Elli and David packed their things, what little there was, and threw their rucksacks over their shoulders. They left the barracks, walking past different groups of marines as they gathered their things.

The entire base was packing up; the only things left here were marines. The hangar was packed with people loading onto the Pelicans, and Elli and David were some of the last to board the dropships. They stepped onto the ship, floating about a foot of the hangar floor. It was practically stuffed to capacity, and they had trouble finding room, but they did, and the back door slid closed, the red lights of the troop bay shining dimly in the low light.

Elli sighed as the dropship soared out of the hangar and up into the air. A similar evacuation was going on at the bravo site, all of the expensive military weapons being pulled out as well as the few personnel that were there. She thought briefly of Patrick, he'd left the night before and it just felt empty without him and Michael around.

"That makes two of us in one mission." She looked over at David; he had his helmet off, and had been muttering.

"What?" She asked, and he looked over at her, a sad look on his face.

"Two Spartans MIA in one mission, that's heavy losses for us." She nodded, fighting to keep tears from her eyes. She rubbed the back of her hand over her eyes to wipe her eyes, and looked up at the ceiling.

"Ladies and gentlemen, this is your captain speaking, we'll be docking with the _Antietam _in approximately fifteen minutes, please make sure your seat belts are buckled, and if you're standing, I'd hold onto anything you can find, and try not to hurt your ass." This brought a chuckled from a few of the marines.

_Cocky-ass flyboys_. David thought, leaning against the door into the cockpit. He thought for a moment, and then hit the switch, popping the door of the cockpit of the Pelican. He walked in, gazing out the viewport, and gasped.

"Oh my god." Came out as barely more than a whisper. Elli pushed into the cabin, and held her hands to her mouth. A fleet of Covenant ships, no less than thirty strong were advancing on the planet.

"No…Patrick's still down there!" They could only watch as the ships moved on the planet slowly, the plasma batteries on their lateral lines heating up. The lanced forward, boiling away atmosphere and water as they hit the planet surface. They'd never seen a glassing from this close before. It was all together horrendous and terrifying.

"Bastards…they're gonna pay for this if it's the last thing I do." David hissed through clenched teeth. "They're all gonna pay."


	3. Chapter 3

___

Brothers

Part III

___

Helljumpers' and Hand-grenades.

IN ORBIT AROUND REACH, 2530

David and Elli had quickly settled back into their normal rolls, pushing the grief past themselves. It was pivotal, they had a war to fight, grief could come after the war was over and the covenant was defeated. _If we ever actually beat them_ Elizabeth thought to herself, gazing at the planet below them. Reach, the UNSC main military stronghold.

Thirty orbital guns surrounded the planet, each one capable of placing a heavy MAC round through a covenant ship, stem to stern.

"Chief?" A voice interrupted her thoughts quickly, and she spun to see a corpsman standing in front of her.

"Huh?" She asked, looking at the man before her.

"Ma'am, your dropship leaves in five, Captain asked me to inform you." She nodded her thanks, and the corpsman disappeared down the corridor, as she slung her duffel bag over her shoulder. The Spartan wasn't in armor, though she wished she was. Most Spartans preferred their armor to being without.

She made her way quickly to the hangar, spotting the dropship that was ready to go. David was aboard, as was a small group of personnel, including major Davenport. She stepped up onto the vehicle, and the back door shut, the craft lifting up into the air.

The ship left the hangar, accelerating into space, and soon after into the atmosphere of the planet. It sank through the air quickly, eventually coming to rest on a landing pad no doubt. As the back door slid open, David and Elizabeth stood to meet their welcome party. Thirteen high ranking UNSC officials, and three Spartans stood waiting for them.

"Ladies, gentlemen." The major said as he exited the Pelican, disappearing with the high ranking officials. The Spartans stayed.

"Sir." David said, saluting the Spartan in front of him. This particular man was the leader of them all, though most people wouldn't recognize him fully encased in Mjlonir as he was.

"Master Chief." Elisabeth said, saluting as well, and John gave returned the salute, nodding to the two Spartans next to him.

"You two remember zero-five-four Jeremy, and one-oh-eight Kristine." He said, the two Spartans removed their helmets, and both David and Elisabeth smiled.

"Yes sir, it's been awhile since we've all been together." David said.

"They're your new teammates, we're all sorry about what happened to Patrick and Michael, but we have to put that past us, the Covenant isn't slowing their pace, and neither can we." They nodded to him, and saluted again with a quick,

"Sir!" The Master Chief Petty officer, John-117 walked away from the quick reunion.

_____

The barracks for the Spartans on Reach were nearly empty; the majority of Spartans had been shipped out to perform a plethora of duties around UNSC space against the Covenant, and even john, whom they'd just seen hours before, had already shipped out again.

And it was within the empty barracks that David found Kristine and Jeremy, checking their armor systems.

"Hey guys, suit up." He said, nodding to the armor they were cleaning.

"We getting' shipped out now?" Kris asked, and David shook his head.

"Nah, we're payin' respects." They nodded and suited up in tote Mjolnir quickly, and followed him out of the door at a clipped pace. They were walking for nearly fifteen minutes, when Jeremy finally asked where they were going, and he pointed up to the ridge far ahead of them.

"Where we've always gone."

______

The sun was setting as they crested the top of the ridge; the mood surrounding the area was somber. The four Spartans were there, David, Jeremy, Kristine, and Elisabeth.

"_We have come to a place far from home / Time long passed since we have seen the sun rise / A place where peace can finally come / A place where we can rest and laugh and sing and love once more._" In Elisabeth's hands, she clutched a black leather bound copy of the _Rainforest Wars: A Solder's Tale, _The old military classic often used for something like this. When she had finished reciting it, she had given a slight nod to David, who removed his helmet, and raised a trumpet.

"Present Arms!" She called out, and Jeremy and Kris raised their rifles. David began playing _Taps_, the ancient song used by militaries at a funeral. Two slabs of stone, unmarked, stood upright on the ridge.

"Have we been authorized to fire off live rounds out here, this close to a base?" Jeremy whispered, and Kris smiled.

"No."

"Fire!" Elli called, and the rifles sounded in the fading light.

______

Lieutenant Colonel Franklin Cord was slightly pleased with himself. They had pushed the Covenant back on Prometheus, a large planet very similar to Earth. It was lucky to, because an ammunition and weapons factory, second only to Misriah Armory, was located here. The armory had supplied Admiral Cole and his ships during much of the Harvest campaign, and they continued to supply the UNSC well into their current campaigns.

Colonel Cord knew that the only thing saving himself and his men from destruction were the six orbital weapons platforms, and the fact that they were somewhat off the beaten path. They'd only been found by small covenant forces, most simply by them stumbling upon the colony.

Or so he thought, considering they never came in enough force to kill them all.

But it seemed all of that was changing.

"What the hell's going on up there captain?!" he shouted into the radio transceiver. Every man on the ground could see the picket line of covenant ships through the video monitors they were using. It seemed to…unreal.

"We're taking heavy losses, they keep moving, we can't get multiple hits on a single ship, every time one takes a MAC round, It moves and another takes its place!" Captain Joshua Hartsfield yelled, and then the Colonel could hear him yelling at the bridge personnel.

"Vent that atmosphere; stop the fire from spreading…" And another officer in the background,

"Impact in five…four…three…two…conta…!" But he was cut off by a wash of static as the communications with the ship were disrupted, most likely by the ships destruction.

"What does this mean sir?" One of his NCO's asked a look of complete fear on his face.

"It means the navy just got its ass kicked, and we're next." But a new voice came over the radio, loud and clear….

"This is Spartan Oh twenty-two. This fight isn't over yet sir."

_____

The large briefing room, the size of an auditorium, was often used by Spartans when they received their mission from ONI and Doctor Halsey. Today, ten Spartans sat within, the four of David's unit, of which David had been named the de-facto leader, and two other Spartan units, both of them three man teams.

"And you are to retake the manufacturing plant and neutralize all covenant threats, Spartans, you must do _everything_ in your power to push them off Prometheus. Do you understand?"

Halsey asked, and the two teams of three nodded before being dismissed. With them gone, it left only the four, and they waited eagerly for their next assignment.

"Delta squad, you have objectives of extreme importance to the UNSC and to ONI. The office of Naval Intelligence has requested that we capture a living covenant specimen, and you're the vanguard of this mission. The covenant forces on Prometheus are pushing forward, and they'll never expect this attack. You will be augmented by Bravo and Charlie if need be."

The four nodded, and called out, "yes Ma'am." As they exited the room, none of them heard Halsey's farewell, a final nearly silent whisper. "Good luck."

______

Lieutenant Colonel Cord crouched beneath the fallen pillar; the massive stone structure had fallen from its braces and had managed to cut the large room in half cover wise. Plasma bolts continued to smash into it, the covenant plasma rifles firing until the hissed from overheating.

He popped up, spraying the line of covenant soldiers. He hadn't heard from the Spartan since he'd been first contacted, but when the first covenant frigate over the city detonated in a burning blue ball of plasma, he expected it was that man's doing.

"Fall back! Pull back to the conference hall!" The Colonel shouted, directing his men through a solid metal doorway. On the other side were the reinforced hallways that lead to the secure conference hall, a large ONI briefing room at the center of the complex.

Sixteen marines pulled back, their running forms covered by the twelve Helljumpers watching their escape. The Lieutenant Colonel singled them to fall back as well, and the Helljumper Sergeant nodded, directing his men to the conference hall.

They all made it through has the solid metal blast door slid into place, blocking the covenant out.

"We aren't out of the woods yet." The colonel said, trudging ahead with the men. Cord was correct, and up ahead, one of the men stopped and examined a foot print in the dust.

"Not one of ours sir." He whispered, and Cord nodded.

"Elites, probably cloaked. Alright here's what we're gonna do, switch over to thermals, Jonathon, hand me one of those flashers you got." The marine Corporal nodded and handed over a flash bang grenade, the small cylinder exactly what Cord needed.

"Probably right around the corner." The Colonel said, and he stuck his gun around the bend. Sure enough plasma fire strafed the area, and Cord smiled. "And in the beginning, God said, let there be light." He pulled the pin and whipped the grenade around the corner, the bright flash showing itself even around the bend.

"Go!" They all turned the corner, guns up and firing as the disoriented elites, now visible from the flash bang which had overwhelmed their active camouflage. The elites went down hard, bulled over by sixteen MA5B assault rifles.

"Alright, check you six and move out, watch for anymore enemy contacts."

_______

Three human frigates exited Slipspace, disgorging fourteen dropships as they did so, each one packed to the brim with marines.

"ODST's you are clear to drop!" Came the order from the bridge, and every single Orbital Drop Shock Trooper pod disengaged from the ship, sailing down into Prometheus's atmosphere. By the time the Covenant had realized that reinforcements for the humans had shown up, the three frigates had disappeared into the debris field.

_________

"Go go go!" The shout came from a Sergeant, the man ordering the ODST's to haul ass. Behind Cord's group, the sounds of Covenant burning through the metal door was as loud as ever as they easily penetrated the ancient defenses.

"We gotta go or else we aren't getting' out of here!" The Colonel shouted. They burst into the conference room, which had been loaded with equipment and personnel, and now most of the men lay dead, plasma scarring the area. The floor was littered with marine corpses and dead elites, and a small barricade had been erected on the far side of the room, on the stage.

Four men sat behind it, their guns up.

"Thank god the cavalry showed up, we've been broadcasting that signal for ten friggin' minutes!" One shouted, the single chevron on his shoulder toting his rank as private first class. Cord's mouth fell open, and he directed his men into the room, the soldiers securing the perimeter.

"We haven't picked up any signals on the E-Band, or any other UNSC used band." The private seemed surprised.

"But we've been broadcastin.." He was cut off by the colonel.

"You've given away this place to the rest of the covenant on planet. They will come here now for sure, any place that seems to host human survivors. You may have just killed us all." He looked around the room, and shook his head. "I shouldn't have brought my men here." He said aloud, and turned to the ODST Sergeant.

"Aronson, get your men away from that door and down here. I need this room rigged to collapse on the first covenant bastard that sets foot through that door." The Sergeant nodded.

"You men." He said, pointing at the survivors. "Open the door back there, I know there's a second way out, use it, now. That goes for you too." He said, this time directed at the marine she had brought in with him.

_______

Of the Pelicans that had dropped in from the frigates, three of them stuck together, each one carrying a load of Spartans and ODST's. Inside the first Pelican, David and Elli talked using their private comm. channels with Jeremy and Kris.

"We're going to have to move carefully, when it comes to those elite bastards, I want knee caps only, unless in immediate danger. We need a living covenant specimen alive."

"Roger that." Came the unanimous reply. David had fallen into the role of team leader with the death of Michael.

"Everyone ready?" he asked. "Gear been thoroughly checked?"

"Good to go here." Elli said.

"All set." Came Jeremy's reply.

"Let's kick some ass." Kris answered, and in his helmet, David smiled.

"Alright, it's showtime."


	4. Chapter 4

___

Brothers

Part IV

___

"_Near the end of that battle, no one wanted to defend Prometheus anymore. In one single battle out of the entire human covenant war, I have never seen as many of my friends die _

_As in that one god forsaken fight."_

-Private John S. Newman, UNSC Marine Corp.

*

The Artillery fire was deafening, and it cracked across the city ever day and night. No matter how many times they shelled the covenant position, they never moved and inch backwards, only forwards. They hadn't glassed the city yet, and of that, Staff Sergeant Samantha Mackenzie was glad.

As long as the covenant ships stayed where they were, she didn't give a damn how much supplies they off loaded. They watched it happen, every twenty-four hours, small groups of soldiers and supplies would move down the purple gravity beams, while other groups would move up it.

They watched through field glasses and sniper scopes, catching glimpses of scores of grunts and jackals, an elite perhaps every other squad, and the occasional hunter. From what she could tell, there were at least twelve pairs of hunters in the city.

Two days before she had seen a lone Spartan engage two hunters at the same time. The Spartan had walked away victorious, and Samantha had kept her squad entertained for the next several hours relating the account until it became boring to talk about. They knew there were Spartans on planet, but no one was sure exactly how many.

"Incoming, banshees, roof top teams watch your six!" The report registered over the radio, and Sam sat up straight, reaching for two the rocket launcher at her feet.

"You heard the man boys and girls, let's get this show on the road!" Four other soldiers' crouched low, launchers up as the banshees, now outlined by the blue glow of their drive pods, swooped in low, their plasma fire strafing the artillery positions. "Bravo one, Fox one." She announced, and the rocket sped from the tube, locking in on the banshee's heat source. Her men called similar shouts into their mic's as they fired, and the banshees turned into screaming piles of metal, obliterate by the rockets.

"Roof's, I need a visual on Delta, their 'Hog's commin' in hot." Said the radio operator, and Sam's men rushed to the roof edge, spotting the Warthog speed through the area, nearly spinning out on the corner. The driver managed to regain control as a pair of Specter's rounded the corner. The low covenant vehicles were the covenant equivalent of the UNSC Warthog.

The covenant vehicles sprayed at the warthog, their plasma cannons lighting up the street.

"Cheng, tap me into their team comm.." Sam said, and the Marine nodded, and began pressing a few digits on his datapad.

"You're in." She chinned her comm. and said,

"Delta, get a little space between yourselves and the Covies, we're gonna light the bastards up!"

"I heard that!" One of them shouted, happy to get some back up. She directed her troops, and they positioned their rocket's accordingly.

"On my mark…" Down below, the Warthog began spraying fire, the gunner opening up with the fifty on the back. The two Specter drivers slowed a little, and Sam took her chance.

"Mark!" Four rockets fired, and two exploding vehicles lit the night.

_______

"Watch out for 'em, they've got a bite as big as their bark." David cautioned, and Elli nodded. Jeremy and Kris watched the large apelike creature going about its business, ordering a squad of Grunts and jackals around.

David had dubbed them brutes, saying that was the general UNSC slang for them. Elli already knew this, they'd encountered brutes on Eridanus II, and she knew the dangers of going toe to toe with the large aliens. This one was wearing glistening gold armor, and had one of the rocket propelled grenade launchers strapped across his back. The semiautomatic weapons were dangerous as hell.

"Move…now!" And the Spartans moved, simultaneously, half shadow; half death on legs, the brutes never saw it coming. A few well placed rounds and a slew of hand grenades, and the Covenant force guarding this section of building were dead in seconds.

_________

"We're good!" Came a shout, ad Lieutenant Colonel Cord nodded.

"All men fall back to the door way and pull back." He ran to the entrance, and called out, "Watch, what've you got?"

"Two hundred hostiles, maybe more!" The man called, and Cord nodded.

"Fall back, this Oni building's gonna be history real soon!" the minute the man made it back through the main entrance, Cord sent him to the back exit, and then fell back himself. He was the last person to exit the room, and the covenant was there not two minutes later. But they were met by the roaring blast of explosive Det-packs exploding, collapsing the reinforced briefing room on top of them. There were no survivors.

Cord's men pulled back through the escape tunnel, running for their lives. Behind them the tunnel was cracking and collapsing, unable to hold up the extra weight it now had on top of it.

They exited it, into the dark night, all of his remaining men and the Helljumpers that had retreated with them.

"Go!" he called, and as they exited the tunnel, bright lights flashed on, illuminating the escaping humans. They were surrounded, hundreds of covenant soldiers, all of their plasma turrets and plasma rifles trained on them. A lone Elite walked forward, glistening golden armor adorning his body.

"An unwise mistake you have made human." The elite raised its arm, and all of the covenant troops took aim, their weapons ready. "No heroic words from you human?" It asked, and Cord opened his mouth to speak. Before a single word could be said, the elite dropped its arm, and thousands of plasma bolts lit the night.

_______

On board a Covenant frigate, one lone human remained, clad in iridescent green armor. Patrick, Spartan Zero twenty-two was very much alive, but had made little in the way of locating Michael. He refused to believe that Michael had died when the tactical nuke went off.

He trailed along through the ship, nearly every single covenant soldier dead. He'd interrogated two creatures calling themselves prophets, but all they did was pout religious doctrine and tell him he'd die in the burning fires of halo, whatever the hell that was.

Patrick went up to the control console, punched in the right commands, and left the bridge as a countdown timer began, and fifteen minutes later, Patrick was gone, aboard his Pelican Dropship, and another covenant frigate was turned into a gigantic frag grenade.

_______

Sam Mackenzie stormed across the wide expanse of a bridge, rain pouring around her and her men. No one had lights up, and the covenant forces on the other side weren't prepared for an attack. She chinned her comm., and whispered,

"Fire mission battery, danger close, I repeat danger close."

"Roger that Charlie two-twelve." In the distance, the sound of cannon fire ripped through the sky, louder than any thunder. Seconds later she could hear the whistling of artillery shells as they drew near the Covenant camp, followed by the terrifying and magnificent booms that tore the air apart. The covenant camp seemed to be burning, and dozens of Grunts, scared shitless, ran left and right.

"Mole-whack any stragglers boys, I want this dealt with quickly."

"Yes ma'am." They moved into the camp like a squad of ghosts, suppressed weapons pouring out bullet after bullet. The covenant forces were disoriented, and unprepared for the sudden attack, and were made quick work of.

The ground was littered with corpses, but by day break on September 3rd, 2530, Prometheus colony was once again in human hands.

________

Everyone had been ordered to regroup, the few hundred UNSC troops in the city were quickly sent supplies from the three frigates in orbit, and a promise that more ships were on the way. There was a pair of carriers and a few other vessels defending the surviving MAC platforms.

The majority of the eighth fleet had been decimated, turned into smoking ruin up in orbit before the orbital platforms had managed to push them back. Three of the six platforms were down, leaving them weak and vulnerable.

"Ok, here's what's gonna happen. We've pushed back twelve Covenant ships at a loss of thirty of our own. That's not good, without the fleet all we have is the orbital guns which means that's gonna be the Covenant's next target." Major Logan Kean was saying, directing his men.

"I want Alpha and Bravo Platoons to move out to the first and second generator complexes, they need to be defended at all costs." The leaders of those two platoons nodded before running off. "I want Delta to check out the third complex, diagnostics says it's still running, but we can't get a radio call to the men there. Might just be having radio trouble, check in to it." The delta commander nodded and moved off.

"Staff Sergeant Mackenzie?" She turned to the Major.

"Yes sir?" She asked.

"I want your squad to look around, see if you can find where those Spartans got off to, I need 'em." She nodded, and waved a hand to her guys.

"Yes sir. You heard the man let's go!" the five soldiers in Mackenzie's squad grabbed their gear and stood up; one of them dusted himself off.

"Where we goin'?" He asked, and she shook her head.

"Where ever I say, let's go."

"Yes ma'am."

Major Kean returned to his work as the six marines gathered up their gear and trooped off. As they were leaving, they asked around if anyone knew where the Spartan's were, and no one knew any solid facts. One man said he'd heard of an entire covenant outpost had been wiped through, clean and efficient, it looked like all of the covenant had simply died where they were standing, none had expected the attack.

Mackenzie thanked him for the info, and directed her men out of the firebase.

________

The information had been pretty close to the truth, the small base was littered with the corpses of brutes and grunts, everyone had been killed by precision head shots, and all of them looked like they'd been going about their normal business when they had died.

"Definitely the work of Spartans, look at this, it's so clean; they never knew what the hell hit 'em!" Aden Cheng, the team's electronics expert was checking a few of the bodies, gazing at the holes. The sound of moving objects caused all of the soldiers to spin suddenly, their guns up and ready. A somewhat timid voice shouted,

"Friendlies coming out hold your fire!" Two marines walked out slowly from one of the squat covenant buildings, their hands raised, MA5B's strapped across their backs.

"Who are you?" Sam asked, and the shorter of the two men, with a face only a pug could love and a deep bass voice said,

"Private first class, Darrel Smith. This guy's Private Shane Duncan." He said, hooking a thumb to his buddy.

"What are you two doing here?" She asked them.

"Guardin' the place." The second man said simply.

"Right and I'm so sure the two of you aren't AWOL." The man who had spoken up was Corporal James Travis.

"We ain't AWOL, just missin' I'm sure." Was the pug faced man's answer. "We were told to guard the place by four of the bug guys."

"Big guys?" Samantha asked, and the guy nodded quickly.

"Spartan's, there was four of 'em."

"Which way did they go?" Sam demanded quickly, and he pointed off towards the covenant ship floating in the distance.

"Thataways, said they had some unfinished business with the owner of that vessel." Sam patted him on the shoulder and nodded to her guys.

"Thanks for the help; we'll be seeing you later." Sam said quickly as they jogged off in the direction of the massive covenant warship.

________

"Where is he now?" Patrick demanded in a cold voice. The creature clutched in his grip was frail, nothing like the warrior elites they had faced. The creatures was cowering, scared of the Sparta after Patrick had pulled him bodily out of his floating throne.

"In orbit aboard the _Rising Conviction._" He said quickly, no doubt hoping Patrick would spare his life. "I…I can help you demon, I can help you find him!" He shouted as Patrick threw him to the ground and drew his M6D. Patrick ignored him and pulled the slide back, shifting a round from the magazine into the chamber. "You'll need me if you want to find out which ship it is!"

Patrick stopped, stared at the creature, and sighed angrily as he slid the magnum back into its holster. It was right of course, he'd need its help if he wanted to find out exactly which ship it was.

"Fine." He muttered, and grabbed the creature by its long robes. He dragged it down the hallway towards the landing bay, and entered quickly. Instead of his Pelican, he opted for the covenant shuttle, in hopes of fooling the covenant onboard the so called "_Rising Conviction"_ long enough to board it. "Say the wrong thing to them during communications, and I'll blow your brains out against the viewport, got me?"

He nodded, saying quickly, "I wouldn't jeopardize my own life to help them, I am no elite, I won't throw my life away for the sake of _honor_." Patrick smirked, and flew from the hangar, exiting into the atmosphere over the city.

Below he could see smoke rising from several locations, but thought none of it as they picked up speed into the upper atmosphere and out into space. He saw the covenant fleet ahead of them as it closed with the planet, and received a hail from one of the ships.

"Alright, get talking." He said coldly.

________

The gravity beam for the ship was unguarded, oddly enough. Sam led her squad forward defensively, looking for any chance of an ambush. The ground here was littered with bodies as well; each one had the same precision headshots as the bodies at the outpost, though here there were scorch marks from grenades to.

"Alright, we need to go up, now." She said, indicating the purple glowing beam. He men nodded and walked onto the platform quickly, and waited.

"Ah!" Cheng said as he was lifted off his feet. The others let out similar signs of shock, and felt the rush of being pulled up into the sky. She looked up towards where they'd be entering, and readied herself.

_Into the belly of the beast_.


	5. Chapter 5

___

Brothers

Part V

___

"_Getting caught up in the machinations of four Spartans was the most exhilarating, scary, and mind blowing experiences of the war for me, and I have to say, I will always respect those four, now and forever."_

-Staff Sergeant Samantha Mackenzie

*

"What the f…?"

"Stow the chatter" David said to Jeremy, who immediately closed his mouth. "These are all bullet wounds." David said as he crouched next to the form of a dead elite, his body splayed out in the middle of the covenant ships corridor. The ship was completely devoid of life, with the internal sensors on the empty bridge reading only four life signs.

"Who the hell did this?" Kris asked, checking the bodies on the other end of the ships command center.

"Patrick." Elli said from the doorway. Her sudden appearance caused the others to spin around. "It's not just here; the bodies are littering the entire ship. He really went to town on this place." David, helmetless at that moment, frowned slightly.

"He's trying to get his revenge. That's not a healthy attitude." All Elizabeth could do was shrug.

"I don't think it's that bad, I mean, at least he's still alive, right?"

"Listen Elli, what he's doing, it's not healthy. Not only will it get him killed, but this attitude proves one thing, that we, all of us, are unstable. I don't know what could set us off like that, but I sure as hell don't want to find out." He took a breath, and lowered his voice slightly. "What he's done here? This is impossible. It would take an entire unit of Spartan's to do this, and then we'd only do it b securing the bridge and venting the atmo."

Elli opened her mouth to argue, but David cut her off.

"He's seriously gone off the deep end, and that means that he might not give a shit about who's with him. I'd hate for us to get in his way, because he'll probably kill us." Elli was stunned by his words, and she took a step back, looking David over for a moment.

"David." She said

"Elli, listen…"

"Dammit David, let me speak!" The outburst shut him up quickly, and he nodded.

"David, Patrick's our friend, and ally. We need to remember that always. No matter what's going through his mind, he knows this, and we need to know it to. No arguing, no objections, got it?" She demanded, and he opened his mouth to argue. "David." She said warningly, and he paused again."

"You're right Elli. We need to help Patrick."

"You may get a chance to." The both turned at the sound of Kris's voice. She was standing next to one of the covenant computer monitors up on the raised command platform. "There's still a Pelican dropship in the landing bay, and the last thing to leave was a covenant shuttle, which is about to meet with the fleet in orbit."

"Alright, then that's probably him. Can you fly this thing?" he asked Kris, and she nodded. "Yeah, they put me through a simulator a few months back. It might be a little rough, but I can do it."

"Hey guys?" This time it was Jeremy speaking up. "There are six life signs showing up in the gravity lift room right now.

"Shit." David said as he slipped his helmet back on. "Kris, get this thing flying, Jeremy track those signatures."

"What do you want me to do?" Elizabeth asked.

"You're coming with me down to the gravity lift room."

_________

Samantha Mackenzie stepped off the lift and began making hand signals towards he troops, directing their movements. Two of them investigated the bodies strewn about the room, and confirmed that it was the same precise bullet wounds.

"Well, they're here." She said, and stood a little less straight. From the looks of things they wouldn't have to worry about too many Covies onboard, or else they would have already reposted guards. "Aright, move out, find the Spartans, and get back to base, etcetera." Cheng nodded and took point, followed by Reilly, Newman, Travis, herself, Burge and Cole took up the rear. They left through the bulkhead on the far side of the room and headed in the direction that Sam _thought_ went to the bridge, or at least she hoped it did.

They'd been traveling for perhaps ten minutes when they came to a locked bulkhead.

"I can bypass it." Cheng said. "But it'll take time." Sam shook her head,

"We'll just take this one." She said, pointing to the bulkhead three meters to the left of them. The others nodded, and Cheng palmed the pad next to the door as it slid open to reveal…

__________

…Two gun barrels aimed at head height in their direction. Sam instantly recognized the guns as the marine MA5B, but it was the beings in charge of the weapon that stunned her. A pair of giants clad in iridescent green armor. Spartans.

She recognized a few of the scorch marks on one of them as the Spartan she had seen take on a hunter in hand to hand combat and win.

"Friendlies!" Travis shouted, and the Spartans lowered their weapons and took a step back.

"What are six soldiers doing on board a covenant ship?" The first one asked; the voice distinctly male.

"In all truthfulness? Looking for you." Mackenzie said, indicating them with a nod of her head. "We've got orders from Major Kean to collect the four of you. There are two more, correct?" She inquired, and the second Spartan nodded.

"That's gonna be hard." The male Spartan said, as he and the other one turned and began walking down the hallway. Sam ran to catch up and so did the others.

"Uh, why, exactly?" She asked.

"We have…conflicting orders. We can't go back to Major Kean at this moment, not until we're finished. You can go back now, and tell him I said that." Mackenzie shook her head quickly,

"I ain't going back without you four. If I come back and tell Kean that I found you guys but decided to skip back home, he'll chew an unhealthy chunk out of my ass." David chuckled slightly, and stopped, turning back to her.

"You could always tell him you didn't find us."

"And then I'd be lying. I'm not going back without you guys."

"And we're not goin back until we're done with our mission." Sam sighed, and looked at him hard. She was stubborn as hell, and refused to back down. "Trust me; you don't want to come with us."

Sam took the last statement as a personal challenge, and smirked. "Like I said, I ain't going back without you four. So we'll just have to come with you guys until you're finished."

"What!?" Travis said suddenly. He pulled Sam aside and began talking hurriedly. "Spartans are best known for their freakin' suicide missions! If we go with them, we're all gonna end up dead!"

"Hey Travis?" She asked, and he stopped his rant for a moment.

"What?"

"Shut the hell up and quit your bitching. That's and order."

__________

They had gathered on the bridge, after David reluctantly agreed to let them come with. Who knew, maybe they'd even prove to be useful. They ship was moving now, entering orbit around the planet, and soon to meet up with the fleet that was arriving in system.

It had been one hour since Patrick's shuttle had disappeared inside the belly of the covenant super carrier near the center of the formation, and Kris piloted them into the formation of the ships. They'd been hailed, and Kris had answered them with written messages, sighting damages sustained during battle.

The kept moving until they were parallel with the assault carrier, and then just moved slowly with the formation.

"Okay, twenty minutes." David said as they checked their weapons and gear. Kris, are the final settings input into the computer?"

"We're all set to go." She said, and he nodded.

"Good, let's go." The six marines followed David and Kris down to the docking bay, where Elli and Jeremy were putting the finishing touches on the Pelican David had left. The interior was had all of the seats and weapons racks pulled out, and in their place they were welding in heavy plates from the floor of the hangar that the two Spartan's were prying out.

Jeremy was sitting in front of the Pelicans nose, a can of paint opened up next to him and a brush in his hand.

"Where'd you get that?" Sam asked, and Jeremy smiled.

"Found it in the Pelican" He had painted the nose of the Pelican to resemble the famous "shark face" used by pilots on a lot of their craft in wartime.

"We're all set in here." Elli said as she moved a last covenant shipping crate into the pelican's interior. They'd paced the crates full of explosives, and now six of them sat inside, three against either wall. It was going to be a tight squeeze for them all.

"Ten minutes." David reminded the group as he boarded the craft. Kris followed and walked into the cockpit, sitting down in the pilot's chair. She powered up the small ship, and the pelican took off, sitting about a foot off the deck of the hangar.

Jeremy hopped up from his sitting position and boarded the ship, quickly followed by Elli and the six marines.

"Showtime." David said, as he slid a magazine into his MA5B.

__________

Patrick moved methodically through the ship, preying on the scared grunts. To them, he was the embodiment of death itself. He'd left the Prophet of Disdain, as that's wha the creature called itself, trussed up in the shuttle. It claimed to be some sort for leader among the covenant, and Patrick was sure the ONI spooks would love to get their hands on it.

He'd decided to be a little stealthier this time, considering the ship was larger than the last two, which meant more covenant. He'd been killing grunts through different means, choosing not to use any of his guns. He was running low on bullets for pretty much everything, and he wanted to save them for when he'd truly need them.

He knew the way to the bridge, and was slowly working his way there, with his next plan of action being to locate the brig. He made his way to the bridge's entrance, and took a deep breath. He slid the shotgun off his back, and palmed the button.

___________

The pelican floated in space, no power running. Around them the ships of the covenant armada, fresh from Eridanus no doubt, floated around them silently in the vacuum of space. David checked his countdown timer in the corner of his HUD as it ticked down, 5…4…3…2…1. To the left of the viewport, the ship they had taken powered on, its engines flaring suddenly as it turned perpendicular to the flagship.

The ships empty bridge was no doubt receiving a menagerie of hails from surprised ship masters, but none would react in time for what happened next.

The ship powered forward picking up speed, before colliding with the assault carrier. The covenant commander had the brains to order the shields up moments before the collision, but the kinetic energy quickly transferred itself. The front of the ship crumpled, before the shield of the assault carrier finally failed, and the remaining momentum connected the two ships, the front of the covenant cruiser penetrating the side of the carrier.

Explosions could be seen in both ships, before the small fires died as the oxygen was replaced by hard vacuum. The two ships listed powerless, as other commanders, too surprised to react, watched on in awe.

Kris powered up the pelican, and flew at a full burn towards the dying ships.

__________

Patrick felt the impact, and was knocked off his feet, before regaining his senses. He was on his way to the brig, and wondered what exactly had just hit them, before deciding it didn't matter. Michael was more important.


	6. Chapter 6

___

Brothers

Part VI

___

"_When you let darkness consume you, you can often end up hurting the ones you love. I often looked back on that day and I know that I did what was necessary for the survival of mankind._

_Of course what I did was prompted by my own selfishness, but selfish or not, we still came out victors."_

-Chief Petty Officer Patrick Spartan-022

*

The world was crazy from the minute the ten soldiers exited the pelican. From the minute their boots hit the deck, the world was burning. They piled out of the back door to find that their plan had not only worked perfectly, it had done more than they thought it would. The ship was listing badly, putting a decent tilt in the floor.

There was fire all over the deck, and unexpectant covenant had been knocked to the ground, many had even been killed.

"Let's go!" David shouting, charging into the smoke filled hallways. The others stared for a brief second, and then the next person to follow him was Sam. This started the tide, and the eight took off running into the ship, sprinting the hallways.

Sam had a brief moment to ponder the fact that she hadn't slept in two days, before the adrenaline kicked in and she felt like she was flying.

They didn't stop for anything; most of the covenant was too busy worrying about their burning ship to worry about ten humans rushing through it. Any covenant that got in front of them was simply batted away by the four Spartan's in the lead, their powerful blows practically destroying the weak grunts and Jackals.

"Bridge ahead!" David called, and they were soon running through the sliding doors onto the bridge. It was littered with bodies similar to the other ship, and David almost smiled. Patrick was here, and already getting down to business, no wonder the ship had been unable to move when their ship hit it.

"Alright, we've got concentrations of troops near the hangars and in engineering, and one running blip moving at the speed of a Spartan, looks like he's heading to…detention bay nine. It's Patrick alright; I'll stay here and direct you guys!" Jeremy yelled, as he began locking down the bridge doors.

"Burge, you, Reilly, Newman, and Cole stay back to cover the Spartan!" Sam shouted, and motioned to Travis to follow them out the door.

"Alright marines, we're OTM now!" David yelled, and they charged after him, Elli, and Kris. The continued to sprint as Jeremy fed them directions down the winding hallways. As they passed a curve in the hallway, a slash of energy connected with Kris's side, and the Spartan was knocked off her feet.

Kris didn't stand back up, and from around the corner came a floating energy sword.

"Cloaked son-of-a-bitch!" David shouted as he sidestepped the deadly arc of energy and grabbed the elite's wrist. He twisted hard and heard bones break. The large alien dropped the sword and began pummeling the human with its good hand.

David delivered a hard punch to the aliens jaw, and heard the mandible bones break. He released its destroyed wrist, and it staggered backward. He whipped up his M6D and blew a clean hole through the front of the elites head, splattering brains and gore against the wall behind it.

He dropped low and checked Kris's vitals, but they were all flat lined. "Damn." He whispered, and stood up, throwing her Mjolnir clad form over his shoulder. "Let's move." He muttered, and they took off again. At a junction of hallways, he stopped and turned to Elli. "Keep going, find Patrick."

"What are you doing?" She asked, and he paused for a brief second before saying,

"I'm gonna give Kris a proper Spartan burial."

___________

Patrick slid slowly down the hallway, combat knife in hand. His back was pressed against the hard metal, and he saw the door approaching. He took a breath, and turned to it slowly. Fire was burning somewhere down the hallway, and he could hear the sound of covenant attempting to put it out. He still wasn't sure exactly what had happened, but it had been a perfect distraction.

His motion tracker showed two hostiles through the doors, and he visualized the rooms outline from the map in the bridge computer system.

He hit the button, and the doors slid open with a small chime. The two elites inside whipped around at the noise and Patrick hurled the knife. It landed dead center in the eye of one of the two creatures. The second raised its plasma rifle and fired a barrage, one of the rounds connected with Patrick's side, and burned through the layers of armor.

He didn't even pay attention to the pain, but just ran all out at the creature, tackling it with full force. Its head smashed viciously against the wall behind it, and its helmet cracked from the impact. He brought his fist down into its face as hard as he could, and the elite went still.

He stood away from the creature and drew his magnum, pumping three rounds into its forehead for good measure. He stood and looked around the brig, and spotted at man he hadn't seen in awhile. Lying face down in one of the cells, wearing only the body suit from his Spartan armor, was Michael Spartan-021.

His brother. He deactivated the cell doors, and ran into his brother's cell, checking his brother's vitals. He was breathing, and that was a good sign.

"Mike? Michael? Wake up." He said, patting his brother's cheek. His eyes flickered, and he groaned, sitting up.

"They wanted earth Pat. They wanted it bad." He was covered in small lacerations that were burned closed. "I didn't tell them anything."

"I know you didn't mike, I know you didn't." He saw the burn scar running up to his brother's eyes, and saw how the one eye was glazed over. They'd blinded his brother partially. He felt anger swelling up inside of him, and he helped his brother up. "We gotta go Mike."

His brother seemed to sway for a moment before catching himself, and he walked out of the cell. Patrick opened up one of the bags he was still carrying, and with drew an MA5K assault rifle, the cut down version of the MA5B.

He handed the rifle to Michael, who checked the gun and chambered a round into it. Patrick also pulled out a set of Marine combat armor.

"I would have brought your Spartan stuff, but it was too heavy, this is all I've got."

"Better than nothin." Mike answered, and threw the gear on over his body suit. They walked to the door, and Patrick held up a hand, checking his motion tracker.

"There are three troops heading this way." He took a breath, raised his rifle to his shoulder, and spun the corner, the gun up and ready to shoot at…

___________

David set Kris's body down on the floor, next to the huge plasma coils, each one of the size of a Warthog LRV. He was close to the reactor, from the three floating pink creatures he had passed that seemed to be working; it was obvious they'd caused serious damage.

He opened the back of Kris's armor, and began to fiddle with the fusion generator, doing something every Spartan knew how to do. When you couldn't pull your partner out of there, you were to detonate the fusion reactor to stop the covenant from acquiring the technology.

Once it was set, he made sure he'd have time to get out. The generator would go critical in thirty minutes.

____________

…Elli, Sam, and Travis. He dropped his gun when he spotted Elli, and just stared, before pulling off his helmet.

Elli ran forward, and actually hugged Patrick, and Michael. "Elli…" Patrick whispered, and they broke apart. Elli smacked Patrick hard across the face, and he just smiled.

"That it? I thought you'd give me more." He said, and she actually smiled as tears rolled down her eyes.

"Patrick you asshole, I'm so glad you're alive." She turned to Michael, and just said, "Welcome back from the dead big man." He smiled and said,

"Takes more than a few covenant jag offs to kill me."

"Uhh, hey, maybe we should be getting the hell out of here?" They all turned to Sam, and Michael saluted.

"Yes sir, ma'am, madam, general sir!"

_____________

"Shit! We need back up, they returned in mass, need reinforcements no…" The voice of Cole was cut off over Sam's mic as the three Spartans and two marines ran down the hallways.

"We gotta help them!" Sam said, but Patrick shook his head.

"We can't, they'll have to make it out on their own!" They continued down and passed the hallway that lead to the bridge, though Sam saw the scorch marks lining the walls, and the considerable amount of blood on the floor.

They ran hard; the corridors leading to the hangar were empty. Unfortunately the hangar was not. The pelican and the Covenant shuttle were surrounded, and an odd creature was being dragged out of the shuttle.

"The prophet." Patrick hissed, and watched as a massive elite, who looked to be nine feet tall at the very least. He was wearing ornate armor, and a purple cloak hung from his shoulders. He growled at the creature, and the Prophet pulled himself to his feet, staring angrily Elite.

Their translation soft ware managed to get some of it.

"…Betrayed or covenant and lead our enemies into the very heart of the fleet…" The large creature was saying, and the Prophet scoffed.

"It was your own incompetence as a leader and as a Sangheili that has allowed them to overrun so much of your ship. Perhaps, supreme commander, you should have dealt with them quickly." The large creature shook his head, and pried a silver handle off his belt. An energy sword.

"Speak like that again, and I will remove your head from your shoulders."

"Your treasonous words are heresy supreme commander, I will report this to the council on my return, we will see how well Truth and the hierarchs respond to your heretical statements in my presence." He turned his back to the, elite, no, they were Sangheili, that's wha the so called "prophet" said.

The Sangheili commander ignited the plasma sword and decapitated the Prophet with a single swipe, its odd head falling to the deck next to its now crumpled body.

"Dispose of this quickly, we have work to do." He said to a small group of grunts. "Spread out, find the humans!" He shouted, and the gathered Sangheili, Grunts, and Jackals roared.

"Time to make a scene." Patrick said, sticking a small injector into its assigned slot on his armor. He tabbed the injector's nozzle, and grunted.

"What the hell is that?" Elli asked him, and he shrugged.

"It's a Waverly-Class _Augmentor_." He said simply, and Sam looked at him incredulously.

"Rumbledrugs." She whispered, and he nodded slowly. Rumbledrugs had become notorious in the sporadic colonial insurrections. Notable on Hellas and Fumirole. On both worlds, they'd been used by rebels in a vainglorious attempt to fight Spartan-IIs. The drugs were certainly fearsome; the effect on human physiology was impressive in the short term. Unencumbered by the body's normal safety limits, subjects were capable of feats of enormous strength, but the subsequent lack of control and mental instability together with the immediate physiological damage meant that users often died long before they ever actually laid hands on a Spartan.

But not before doing tremendous damage to themselves and anything that got in their way. He pulled out another injector, and released the contents of that one into himself as well.

"What was that one?" Elli asked, and he said,

"A beta blocker to keep me focused and calm. It's true that Rumbledrugs mess up a regular human, but I'm more augmented already than a normal human. I'd say that these things boost me up to having the strength of one of those brutes, if not more so."

What he said made sense of course, but only up to a point.

"How many of these have you used?"

"Too many." He leapt from their upper balcony, and landed down in the center of the hangar, directly behind the massive Sangheili, as his words hit home with Elizabeth. Patrick was dying.

"Lookin' for me? Well, let me make yer job easier, here I am asshole." He said to the massive creature. Its subordinates all raised their guns, but the Sangheili held up his hand to stop them.

"Are you honorable to stay and fight me, human?" It asked and Patrick smiled inside his helmet.

"The only question is if you have the balls to stay and fight. From the looks of that armor, I'd say you're some pretty hot shit. So let's tussle big boy." The creature entered a fighting stance, and extended its plasma sword, igniting the glowing blue blade.

"I have made it to my position by killing many of your kind, Demon. What makes you think you can defeat me?"

"I can guarantee that I'm nothing like any other human you've ever fought squid lips." Patrick unsheathed the nine inch ceramic carbide combat knife, and held it backhanded, as he and the Sangheili circled each other.

"We shall see." The creature lunged, and Patrick sidestepped the attack, and sliced upwards with the knife as he crouched beneath its lung. The blade connected, and drew a long bloody line up its neck to its face.

The Sangheili growled in anger, and brought its blade down. Patrick was fast, but not quite enough, and the blade burned through his leg armor, and managed to scorch his leg before he was away from the dangerous weapon.

He kept his mouth shut, but almost bit through his lip from the pain.

"Good move split chin. Time for the real show, see if you can keep up." He shot forward and grabbed the creature's wrist, pulling the massive Sangheili forward. It pulled him off balance, and the supreme commander hadn't expected the odd attack.

The aliens head met the deck, and Patrick was already spinning and wrapping his arm around its thick neck. He squeezed tight, and drove the blade into its neck as hard as he could. He twisted, and felt the Sangheili begin to weaken.

"What did I tell you?" He asked mockingly, "I'm like nothing you've ever fought befo…" He stopped suddenly, and a hiss escaped his lips. He looked down, and saw the two pronged blade of an energy sword rammed through his side. He coughed, and realized that the blade was in the supreme commanders head.

He understood then, that the supreme commander had intentionally gone down, just to find an opening to kill the Spartan.

Patrick fell backwards off the Sangheili, and stumbled, hitting the ground. He sat there, one hand grasping the wound that had been melted closed by the burning plasma. "Sonuvabitch." He whispered, still reeling from the sneak attack.

"Any last words, human?" The creature asked, as it rose from the place where it had been laying on the ground.

"Yeah." He said, coughing again. Blood splattered the inside of his helmet visor. "Spartan Contingency Alpha, protocols six activate. Twenty minutes and counting." The Sangheili looked at him oddly, and he reached up, removing his helmet with one hand.

"What?" It asked, a note of confusion in his voice.

"I just activated the Spartan failsafe. In the event of imminent death, we're supposed to allow our fusion packs to go critical. In layman's terms ,you're all about to be blown to kingdom come."

Up on the balcony, David had rejoined them, and watched the display.

"Guys." Patrick called. "David, Elli, Mike, I'm sorry." The Sangheili looked at him again, and roared in fury at his defiant gestures. It stabbed downward at Patrick, tearing through armor, skin and organs.

He fell backwards, dead, a look of peace on his face.

"Ahrgh!" Michael yelled, leaping off of the upper balcony, he landed on the bewildered supreme commander, crushing it to the deck. "You bastard!" He yelled as he leveled the MA5K at its head and unleashed the entire magazine.

The aliens head was obliterated by the assault, and his subordinates all rushed towards Mike.

"All of this, and what happens?! We lose two damn Spartans!" Elli yelled, and she launched herself down after Michael, killing a pair of Jackals by dropping her entire half-ton of Spartan super soldier and Mjolnir armor on them.

She was up and spraying in seconds, firing into waves of approaching covenant soldiers. David followed them off, hitting the floor hard and priming a pair of grenades on the way down. He side armed them into the crowd, and began firing as well.

The dual explosions shot bits of covenant in all directions, and Sam and Travis grabbed a broken piece of conduit and lid down into the melee. Cheng came running from the Pelican; an M7 in each hand, the SMG's roaring a challenge to any Covenant soldier who was close enough.

Jeremy came flying off of the balcony, shooting even as he dropped to the metal deck plates. He dented the thick plates when he hit, continued his barrage on the covenant forces.

"We need to go!" David yelled as he backed towards the massive hole in the wall from where their ship had hit the covenant vessel.

They ran through the hole, covering each other with grenades and rifle fire. They managed to get onboard their vessel and the sprinted for their bridge, anything to get away from the baying covenant forces hot on their heels.

They made it to the bridge in record time and slid inside, three humans, three Spartans. Jeremy made it up to the control consol, and sealed the bridge doors. They could here pounding on the doors, the sound of hundreds of enemy forces trying to get inside.

"Can this thing fly?" David shouted, and Jeremy called,

"We've got breaches in most of the outer compartments, and our plasma turrets located near the front of the ship will never fire again, except for turret three."

"Fire it point plank at the carrier, and get us the hell out of here."

"I can only give her fifteen percent from the reactors."

"Do it!" David shouted, and Jeremy began hitting keys. The ship rumbled, and backed away from the enemy vessel as its only functional forward turret fired into the ships side at point blank range. It melted into the super carrier and caused residual explosions.

"We'll never escape; we'll be destroyed before we escape the formation!" Jeremy shouted and David began thinking as quickly as possible.

"Uhh…umm, dump everything you can into the Slipspace capacitors! Every extra bit of power you can muster!" he tapped away at the control panels furiously, before saying,

"Dumping…now!" He hit the key, and the ships bridge lights shut off, with emergency blue lights clicking on. The ship rumbled again, and he shouted, "Slipspace coordinates for random jump vector…wait, wha?"

"What's wrong now?" David said,

"The computers locked me out, it's input its own coordinates, and is jumping of its own accord!"

"Could this goddamned mission get any more FUBAR?!" David yelled, and the ship shook as it transitioned into Slipspace.


	7. Chapter 7

___

Brothers

Part VII

___

"_I last expected to be the one sitting here, recording this message. I mean, c'mon, right here, right now, there are hundreds of other things I could be doing, like trying to get us out of here. _

_Looks like for once that famous Spartan luck finally ran out. We all knew it was going to at some point."_

-Chief Petty Officer "David" Spartan-132

*

The ships exited Slipspace, remnants of covenant ships and of their own ship were caught up in the wave, and exited the hole along with them.

"So where are we?" David asked, and Jeremy looked up from his control consol.

"This is seriously effed up; I have no idea where in the hell we are. I'm scanning the nearest planets for habitability." He turned back to the consol, and David turned to Elli and the three marines.

"How much gear do we have?" He asked, and Elli shrugged.

"Everything we tore out of the Pelican is still in the hangar bay if it didn't get ripped off during the jump. We have a pair of duffels left behind from Patrick with that stuff, and man of man is it loaded. There's enough ammo and guns to fight a small war, and I also found out that our friend Patrick burrowed a Warthog when he left."

David nodded appreciatively and turned to Samantha, Travis, and Cheng. "I need you guys to secure the gear and get it into here, it looks like we're gonna be stuck awhile."

"Yeah, considering our reactors will only give us five percent power, and we won't ever be able to use that Slipspace drive again, _ever_." Jeremy piped from his spot on the command platform, and David sighed.

"It does seem like we are up shit creek without a paddle-"

"And there's a hole in the ship-"

"I get it Jeremy; we're in a tight spot!" David said, and stopped speaking for a moment to calm himself down. "We need a plan."

"I have an idea." Jeremy said, and nodded to the display next to him.

"You find us a planet?"

"Better. I found us a space station."

____________

It wasn't covenant or human designed, the station was eight kilometers around, a large segmented octagon spanned around the station, while the part the octagon swirled around looked like two pyramids with a large rectangle between them. The center pylon of the station was twelve kilometers tall from pyramid end to end.

An odd array hung from the bottom of the station, with multiple antenna-like poles of varying length extending downward. It hung in a debris field surrounding the planet, most likely created during some sort of cataclysmic event.

Further analysis showed that a lot of the debris was made out of the same metal as the station.

"There was some sort of battle here." Elizabeth remarked, staring at the destroyed metal.

"Yeah, but between who?" David asked. "Covenant and another race?"

"No, this stuff is older than that, and besides, none of that metal matches what the covenant use, and it all looks, I don't know, more advanced that what the covenant is capable of." Jeremy said, and Mike nodded his head in agreement.

"Alright, here's the plan. We secure one of those Phantom dropships from the bay, pack Patrick's arsenal onto it, and fly to the station. We bring the ship in nice and close, and if the stations livable, we salvage as much shit off of this piece of crap ship as we can. Agreed?"

The general consensus was for it, though Travis briefly disagreed with the whole plot. They were soon in the hangar, and had discovered that many of the covenant who had followed them through the hole in the ship were still alive.

They'd managed to make it to air filled compartments after Jeremy had sealed off certain sections of the ship because they were lacking oxygen, and they just could have that. He also began jettisoning compartments that were too damaged to be of any use.

The phantom was in flying condition, unlike six of the other dropships in the bay which had been unceremoniously thrown to the floor in the collision.

They'd moved all of the stuff that had been in the Pelican into the phantom, and when it was set, they began looking about for whatever the Covenant considered rations. They managed to find several different things in a storage room.

One bin was loaded down with a rank smelling meat, probably rotting, and no doubt it was for the jackals. Another bin contained canisters of grey mush that was bland, with nothing really _there_. At least it was filling.

They couldn't find anything else, and after a fierce debate, the bin of grey mush was thrown onboard the phantom.

After it was loaded, Travis, Cheng, and David sat in the hangar, puffing slowly on cigars they had found among the pelicans discarded junk. Samantha and Elizabeth came stalking into the hangar, Elli's armor was scoffed and had plasma burns along the upper right shoulder.

Sam's hand was pressed firmly against her side, and there were cuts and bruises dotting her face. She held her rifle one handed, and her eyes seemed tired and weary.

"The hell happened to you two?" Travis asked, and Elli went into the long explanation about what happens when you're attacked by thirty grunts and four jackals, and some of the grunts happened to be wielding odd little pink crystal shards.

"Like in a needler?" Travis asked, and Elli nodded.

"I took one of the damn crystals in my side from one of the sneakier of the little bastards, and it exploded like a needler round. I've got micro-shrapnel practically falling out of my ass." Sam grunted, and David jumped up.

"Shit! Why didn't you say something sooner?" Travis asked as he quickly retrieved a full field medical kit. He removed a can of Biofoam, and ran to Sam. Travis stuck the nozzle in her wound, and she groaned. "This is gonna sting." He intoned, deadpan, and pressed the release mechanism.

She groaned again, feeling the sensation of having a hundred bees flying around in her wound. She sat on the floor, her back propped against one of the storage crates. Sam closed her eyes and took a breath, as more breaths followed, they became shallower, and Travis realized she had fallen asleep.

"Huh, I forgot the last time we got any sleep was a half hour's worth at base cap, like, three days ago."

__________

They had boarded the phantom after bringing the ship as close to the station as they could without docking with it. They had made sure to secure the bridge well enough that if there were anymore surviving covenant, they wouldn't be able to get in. By welding the doors shut.

From the monitors within the phantoms cockpit, they could all see the extent of the damage to the large CCS-class cruiser. The covenant vessels entire nose section had been crumpled in, like a smashed tin can. There were multiple ruptures along the ship, and it was leaking plasma from many of these long tears in the ship's hull.

They lost sight of the covenant vessel as they turned towards the alien station that was floating among the rubble field. Fifteen minutes of dodging floating rocks an chunks of metal brought them to a docking berth.

___________

"This stuff is amazing!" Jeremy said from the consol he was working on. "This stuff is old, really old, but it still has power, it all still works perfectly." They'd set up shop within a large room within the station. It was centralized pretty well, and only had two doors. David had them weld one of them shut, and the other was covered by a machine gun they had set up.

They'd dragged the different gear into the room, all of the covenant supplies they thought might be useful, and everything off of the Pelican.

They'd just finished moving the last of the cases inside when Jeremy spoke up.

"Uh, guys?"

"What?"

"We have a serious problem." He was looking over the screens as Sam and Elizabeth began cracking open cases of weapons. "Thirteen CCS-class cruisers inbound, they seem pissed." The computer display that Jeremy had managed to hook up to the ancient technology showed thirteen markers on screen. "They must have followed us from the fleet."

"Alright, Sam, Travis, and Elli, set up some charges and get a defensive perimeter set up. Michael, help them." The four jumped up, dragging a pair of cases out of the room quickly. "Cheng, can you help Jeremy find some sort of weapons systems on the station? Anything at all would be helpful."

"Yes sir." He ran up to the console and grabbed one of the terminals that Jeremy had set up.

David opened one of the cases and found a BR-55H battle rifle, and checked the magazine. Fully loaded. He grabbed a pair of spare Magazines, and walked towards the door.

"David, thirty two inbound covenant boarding craft. They're going to try and breach the station!"

"Alright, let's see just how far those split chinned bastards get."

____________

Within the hour, parts of the instillation were swarming with covenant, but they had been repelled from the Spartan's base of operations. David had his back pressed up against a line of empty supply cases, using them for cover.

The butt of his BR-55 was dripping covenant blood, and his ammo counter read a low **15**. He could hear the sound of grunts, barking to each other in their odd language. He glanced around the corner and spotted the group of grunts, four of them, moving cautiously down the hallway. They nervously glanced at their fallen comrades and then continued.

He brought up the rifle and fire two bursts, dropping two of the small creatures. The other two jumped at the sudden booming gunfire, and ran down a side passageway. Right into the marines trap. David could hear the sound of MA5B's spraying, and knew the two aliens were done for.

"David?" A voice asked through the crackling static in his helmet comms. It was Jeremy, and David hoped he had some good news for him.

"Yeah?"

"The stations armed, and I mean _armed_. This thing was made to kill ships, a lot like our MAC platforms around Earth, but it uses a kind of energy beam that just seems to cut through enemy ships!" He sounded happy, and David felt some relief.

"Can you use it against the covenant ships?"

"Well…uh, yes and, uh no." He sounded nervous now, and David didn't like that.

"What do you mean, 'yes and no'?" David asked, irritation creeping into his voice.

"The phase pulse reactor at the top of the station has a sort of shut off valve, to prevent energy from getting to the weapon unless it was needed. Someone needs to go up there and switch it on, or else I won't be able to fire on the covenant ships."

_This just keeps getting better and better._

"Sam? I need you and the marines to grab whatever gear you've got with you and fall back to the command center. Elli, I need you to meet me at the waypoint that should pop up on your HUD in a few seconds. We're gonna go turn that thing on. Mike, I need you to help defend the command center."

"Roger that." Elli said.

"Yes sir." Sam replied.

"On my way." Michael said. David took off down the hallway, moving at a light jog. His HUD highlighted the waypoint he was moving to, and knew that by the time he got there, Elli would already be waiting.

He didn't spot any Covenant on his way, and wondered if that was a good thing or a bad thing. He rounded the corner and Spotted Elizabeth waiting for him, she nodded slightly as he slowed, and they both turned in unison to the gravity lift next to them.

"So, is this thing safe?" She asked, and he shrugged.

"Hell if I know."

"I guess there's only one real way to find out, huh?" They stepped into the lifts glowing blue light, and immediately began rising. It was just like the covenant's gravity lifts. They rose swiftly ,and on the way up, David's mic crackled again.

"David, there's gonna be some heavy resistance up there, I'm reading at least sixty hostiles."


	8. Chapter 8

___

Brothers

Part VIII

___

"_Patrick's sacrifice to save me hit me hard. I was full of anger and the station was full of covenant, so what did I do? I killed every single one that got in my way."_

-Master Chief Petty Officer Spartan-021 "Michael"

*

A burst of SMG fire knocked the small grunt of its feet, but the elite behind it took a bit more persuasions. Eventually, it went down too, and Sam and the marines were forced to move the bodies out of the way. They'd piled up pretty quickly, and with so many dead, it was hard to maintain clear lines of fire.

Of course they weren't without their own casualties. Cheng was limping seriously; his leg had taken a carbine round before the jackal grasping the carbine had its brains painting a wall behind it. Travis had wrapped the wound, but he could tell Cheng was in some serious pain.

"Guys, another group incoming, a couple of the life signs are bigger than the others, looks like hunters." Sure enough, they could hear the growl of elites, and the sounds of moving alien feet on the blood splattered floor.

"Incoming!" Michael yelled, and primed a frag grenade. He whipped the baseball sized grenade around the corner, and heard the satisfying roar of elites as they realized what exactly had just landed between them.

The explosion rocked the hallway and the sound of pissed of hunters echoed into the room. "Crap." Mike muttered, and he raised his rifle, waiting for them to appear. Travis clutched a rocket launcher, and Sam was already priming another grenade.

The huge aliens lumbered into the room, fuel rod cannons raised and ready to fire. The rockets whooshed out of their tubes, the first one striking the wall behind the hunters and causing them little damage. The second one slammed into the lead hunter, and obliterated it, leaving a smoking stump of a body, orange blood and small worm clusters dotting the floor.

The second hunter charged and fired, the green arch of energy flying above the heads of the marines on the floor and Michael, and heading right towards Jeremy. The fuel rod hit the ground at his feet, and launched Jeremy into the air.

____________

At the top of the lift, Elli and David had been greeted by twelve jackals standing in a phalanx, their shields interlocked. Standing behind the Jackals was a pair of elites; one in crimson colored armor, the others was a dull gold.

The two Spartans halted, staring at the line.

"We may have taken a wrong turn." David said, looking at the jackals and elites. Next to the pair of main elites, four energy swords flickered into life, their wielders cloaked in active camouflage.

"We need to make it to that valve." David nodded slowly to her comment, and slowly pulled the charging lever on the battle rifle he held, chambering a round.

"One way or another." They both flexed slowly, the elites regarded them with hateful looks. The four with swords moved around the phalanx and came straight for them. They wanted prisoners after their star captive had been taken.

"No backing down." Elli whispered.

"No surrender." David agreed as his right hand strayed to his combat knife, his left still gripping the rifles hand grip.

"For Patrick."

"And every other Spartan who's fallen to this alien juggernaut."

"It's now or never."

"I choose now." David said, and the pair charged.

_________

"Jeremy!" Michael shouted, sprinting to his fallen comrade's side. The marines all charged the hunter, spraying madly, knowing that none of their bullets would penetrate its thick armor. As they fired, Travis slowly circled to its left, making sure that it was focused on Sam and Cheng.

He grabbed a fallen plasma grenade from a dead elite, and primed the glowing blue explosive. Its form sprang into beautiful blue light and he hurled it at the hunter's unarmored back section.

The grenade stuck, making a slight 'beep' when it did, and the device exploded, blowing a whole in the hunters back. It staggered, dripping worms and glowing orange blood, but it remained upright, and turned its full attention to Travis. He tried to duck as it charged, but only partially managed as its shield clipped his side, tearing a deep bloody gash.

He hit the ground as the others opened up on its exposed back, trying to bring it down. The hunter turned, took a step towards Travis and stopped. It took another step, and then another, before it finally staggered forward and hit the ground.

Sam and Cheng ran to Travis as Mike attended to Jeremy. They inserted a can of Biofoam into his side, and depressed the trigger, spraying the steaming foam into the wound.

"At this rate I'm not gonna survive much longer." The voice was Jeremy's, and he sounded short of breath, and he drew in air shakily.

They turned as Mike pulled himself upright using his assault rifle. Jeremy's chest was blackened, and his helmet was cracked. The eye that they could see underneath was filled with blood. When he coughed they could see a slight spray of blood against the interior of the helmet.

"Mike, pull me up onto the platform, I'll direct you through the firing control." Mike did as he was asked, dragging the man up onto the raised central rings that seemed to be the rooms only sparse decoration.

"Alright, the minute they tell you they've secured the valve, start with this sequence-"

_________

David launched himself over the heads of the elites, spraying downward with his battle rifle as he did so. Elli was right behind him, but her feet remained on the ground as she grabbed an elite's wrist so hard that the bones snapped.

She turned his own energy sword against him, ramming the burning blue plasma into the elite's very own sternum. It fell backwards, and Elli just had enough time to duck a swipe from the third elite. David was wrestling with the fourth, keeping the creatures back to the line of Jackals to prevent them from shooting him as he fought it.

He dug his combat knife into its left eye, but still the creature fought on, trying to swing down it's sword on the Spartan who held its wrist firmly above its head.

Elli launched a side kick into the elite's inverted knee, and heard a satisfying 'crack' as the bone broke and the creature went down with a cry of indignation and rage.

She fired downward into the creature's helmet with her M6D, and saw the blood splatter onto the deck as she turned her attention to the line of jackals that were looking at each other hesitantly. They were now afraid of these demons that had just killed four spec ops elites.

Next to her, David dropped the corpse of the elite he had been fighting, and turned to face the line as well. The Jackals faced them down for all of ten seconds before they broke and ran, holding their shields over their heads.

The elites didn't move, they just stood there, their arms crossed over their chest. Each held an energy sword in its left hand. A challenge. They ignited their weapons and circled the Spartans slowly, the gold one heading for David, the red one towards Elli.

She didn't hesitate to raise her rifle and fire point blank, the shredder rounds she had loaded into her magazine mowing down the red elite before he had a chance to strike.

David wasn't so lucky. The large gold elite had tackled him to the floor, and the two fought, rolling from side to side.

"Elli, get the valve!" he shouted, and she nodded, sprinting for the device. It resided in the room that had been directly behind the phalanx. She burst into open space and saw the panel that hovered off the floor in front of the phase pulse generator.

She rushed forward, the sounds of the scuffle behind her growing louder as the fighting became more vicious. She looked at the panel, unable to read the odd lettering, when she felt a pull to it, and pressed the button that seemed to _feel_ right. It sank inward, and the two red bars next to the button suddenly flashed green.

"Jeremy we're good to go!" She said into her mic.

"Roger that." The voice belonged to Mike, not Jeremy. She wondered what was wrong.

"Dave, we're good!" She called, and turned to the fight. She was about to sprint to help out, when something smashed into her from behind, hard.

__________

David threw the elite off of him with as much force as he could muster, launching the massive creature into the wall behind him. It came back with a solid punch to his face plate, which actually managed to crack the glass. He stumbled, but the elite came forward, its fist already following through for round two. He closed his eyes just in time as the fist broke through the glass plate.

The elite pulled back, but its fist was stuck in good, and he actually pulled David's helmet off. The elite fell backward with the sudden release, and its rear hit the ground, as David charged forward angrily.

He brought his knee up quick, and it connected with the solid muscle of the elite's neck, which knocked the creature onto its back, gagging for breath. He dropped his knee hard into its throat, and pulled the energy sword off the ground.

"Here you son-of-a-bitch. Have a taste of your own medicine." He ignited it, and drove the blade into its head, killing it instantly. It flopped on the floor for a split second, before growing completely still. David stood, and pulled a shard of glass out of his cheek, a small thin splinter. Blood pooled around it, but he didn't care. He turned to Elli, wondering angrily why she hadn't stepped in to help him the minute she told him she was done.

She was nowhere to be seen.

"Elli?" He called into his comm. "Where are you?" he grabbed his discarded battle rifle off the floor, and stepped into the generator room, sweeping the rifle from left to right. He ducked just as the huge shield from a hunter was swung at his head.

David dropped and rolled, sprinting away from the hunter quickly. _Not good_

_________

"Now, when…I tell…you too, hit…the big panel." Jeremy said, coughing up more blood inside his helmet. "Main batteries charging, are…all of those…dots on the screen highlighted?" He asked, and Michael nodded.

"Yeah."

"Alright, in three…two…one, batteries are full, fire." Jeremy muttered, and Michael palmed the control, simultaneously brining up a view screen to watch the ensuing destruction. On screen, the thirteen covenant cruisers moved towards the station, probably intending to dock and release thousands of soldiers into the station. They'd never get the chance.

A red glow began building at spikes that jutted out from the stations ring. Michael counted off the time in his head, as the glow built on each of the spikes, and then with a sudden flash of light, beams of the same red light began to issue from the spikes.

It was amazing, the beam sliced easily through the covenant ships shields, tearing them apart, and then cut through the covenant vessels themselves like a hot knife through butter. They began exploding; none of the ships survived the onslaught.

"Oh my, I fear that though their fleet is destroyed, there are still meddlers onboard the ship, Reclaimer." Michael turned at the sound of the new voice, his gun up and ready to fire.

"Who the hell are you?" he asked, cold steel filling his voice.

"I am Offensive Tangent, guardian of this orbital combat instillation." A small silver ball with a glowing blue "eye" at its center. It looked to be the size of an over-inflated basket ball. Around it floated three other creations, each on had a central glowing eye, with three booms that seemed to float around it.

"So whose station is this?" he asked.

"Why, the Forerunner, of course. But you should know that…Reclaimer."

________

Two dead hunters lay smoking in the generator room, and David was helping Elli to her feet. "Michael, was it successful?"

"Yeah, and we picked up a new friend. He's been telling me a whole lot of stuff you're going to want to know."

"Fill me in when I arrive!" David shouted as he and Elli sprinted to the elevator. The floated down to the command level, and sprinted hard down the corridors to meet up with the others. They passed covenant corpses and spent shell casings.

They entered the control room, and found the others poised over Jeremy's prone form.

"No." David whispered, running up to the group. Michael only nodded and proceeded to fill David in on the forerunner, the threat of some parasite called the Flood, which had now been released on the station.

"My sentinels are combating the threat, but they cannot hold them back forever. They are claiming the corpses of the meddlers and reproducing quickly. The only hope to contain the infection is to destroy the station.

"Already got that covered." Michael said as he hunched Jeremy and pried open the back plate of his armor.

"We need to get out of here, and I need you to come with us." David said to the Guardian.

"Of course, if my station is destroyed then the Instillation's must be warned. If the Flood was released then it must be contained as it was last time."

"Right, right, anyway, we need to get moving now, we have a ship in the debris field that can get us away from here." They moved out into the hallway, scanning the area before moving out quickly. Sam heard an inhuman screech from down the corridor that reverberated through the station.

"I fear the Flood is close, we must move quickly now Reclaimer." They ran for the landing bay, and actually made it into the large vaulted before they were attacked. The creatures were grotesque. The bodies of fallen covenant soldiers had been claimed by this so called "parasite", which had mutated the corpses into terrible creatures.

Many of them were covered in an odd beige substance, and many had claws growing from their arms.

"Beta pattern, triangle, I want a wide field of fire people, fire at will!" David yelled as the three surviving Spartans made a triangle as they walked backwards.

Sam, Travis, and Cheng formed a smaller triangle within the Spartans, and they fired through the gaps between the armored behemoths.

"Cheng, get that dropship flying!" Sam yelled. Her voice quivered slightly with fear, these new creatures were like something out of a horror movie, and the way they moved and acted, it was awful.

Cheng turned and ran, sprinting away from them as quickly as possible. He slid into the phantom, and jumped into the pilot's chair.

"We've got six minutes until detonation!" Michael yelled, and they increased their fire as hundreds of covenant-Flood hybrids spilled from the doorways into the hangar.

"Sam, Travis, get onboard!" David yelled. "Elli, follow them in, but make sure none of those things get behind me and Michael!" The three soldiers fell back to the dropship, and quickly boarded. Michael and David backed up slowly, as the Guardian joined the others.

"Alright Mike, let's go." The two Spartans jumped aboard the dropship, dodging away from slashing claws just in time.

The dropship exited the hangar, pulling away from the infested station.

"Three minutes to detonation." Michael said as the Phantom raced to the wrecked Covenant ship. They neared the hangar of the vessel.

"Two minutes." That was the exact amount of time it took for them to race through the ship to the control room.

"Ten seconds." Their Slipspace drive was running again, but at minimum power. "Four, three, two, one." Michael said under his breath. They watched through the viewing screens as the station exploded, a bright explosion against the background of the planet.

"Jumping." Cheng said, and the forward displays dissolved into the nothingness of Slipspace.

_________

All of the others had been sealed away into cryo storage aboard the ship, only David remained unfrozen. He lay back into his pod, closing his eyes slightly. His mind flashed over Kris, Jeremy, and Patrick. Dead Spartans all lost to the unstoppable covenant juggernaut. Things weren't looking god.

They were in them idle of nowhere, literally. The ship had exited Slipspace with its back-up power running only the life-support systems and the cryo-storage. They had no power to get anywhere else, not that they had anywhere to go. David was tired. Tired of fighting a war that seemed more hopeless by the day, tired of watching his friends die.

The cover of the tube slid into place, and a slight hiss told him the process had started. He doubted they'd be found. The UNSC was too busy fighting a losing battle to find them, a pity. His mind slowly began to go fuzzy as the drugs took effect.

His last thought, _Was it all worth it?_


	9. Epilogue

___

Brothers

Epilogue

___

PLNB TRANSMISSION XX003R-XX

ENCRYPTION CODE: DELTA-SIERRA-022

PUBLIC Key: N/A

FROM: CODENAME WATCHMAN

To: CODENAME SURGEON

SUBJECT: ANALYSIS OF SPARTAN TEAM OMEGA/ SPARTAN-021

AND SPARTAN-022

CLASSIFICATION: EYES ONLY, CODE-WORD |||||||||||||||||||

TOP SECRET

SECURITY OVERRIDE: **BLACK LEVEL-IV**

GHOST SEVER FILE-TRANSFER PROTOCOL **(EXACTION):**** TRUE AI-**TOUCH PROTOCOL

**(VERACITY): FALSE**

/FILE EXTRACTION-RECONSTITUTION COMPLETE/

/START FILE/

The Purpose of this message is to give you my final analysis on the disappearance of Spartan Team Omega, and in particular the loss of Spartan's oh twenty-one and oh twenty-two. Spartan Team Delta had been sent to assist in the defense of Prometheus colony and in particular the armory being used to supply Admiral Cole during his campaign against the covenant.

Unfortunately over the course of the operation, Major Logan Keane lost contact with the Spartans, as well as one of his units, Delta Squad, which had been sent to find the team of Spartan's. It has been assumed by Major Keane himself, as well as the Section one officer in charge of the situation that they were killed by whoever or whatever caused the Spartan's to disappear.

However, circumstantial evidences points to the contrary, that Spartan Team Omega did in fact survive, and Delta Squad did as well.

One of the largest pieces of evidence is the sudden and unexpected destruction of over one hundred and fifty covenant ships on their way to glass Prometheus colony. Subsequent analysis of the debris field turned up samples of MJOLNIR armor, and it is probable that the destruction of the fleet was caused by the explosion of SPARTAN-108, Kristine's fusion reactor.

The cameras for Johnston Remote Viewing Outpost show what appears to be a covenant vessel crash into the fleet's flagship. They stay together for nearly half an hour, before the ship that crashed into the flagship backs off and jumps immediately to Slipspace.

It can be assumed that Spartan Squad Omega was onboard the ship. Further analysis of the video and others from the conflict on Prometheus shows that the ship that collided with the Covenant Flagship had been originally hovering over the city on the colony.

It is believed that Delta Squad, lead by Staff Sergeant Samantha Mackenzie, was with them.

Shortly before the covenant fleet was annihilated, thirteen covenant ships jumped, no doubt following the Spartan's to an unknown location.

From the conflict on Prometheus and the Subsequent destruction of the covenant fleet, it has been inferred by several close confidents, an investigator for section one who owes me a favor, and myself, that without the intervention of the Spartans, Prometheus colony would have fallen and Cole may not have won many of the engagements that he did.

Though Cole did not know it, and neither did the thousands that were saved by his campaigns, but they were saved from total destruction by the efforts of the four Spartans.

But how did the Spartan's end up onboard that Covenant ship? The answer leads back to Eridanus, and the fighting that took place there while the original Spartan Team Omega was under the Command of Major Gerald Davenport.

Over the curse of the fighting, Spartan-021, Michael, was reported missing in action, one of the few Spartan over the course of the conflict to actually be MIA. Shortly afterward Sartan-022, Patrick, who was in fact Michael's twin brother, was also listed MIA, though Major Davenport claimed he was killed during the intense fighting.

Spartans zero fifty-five and one thirty-two, Elizabeth and David, were both questioned, and their stories were the exact same. Except for a few minor details, that when you look at it closely enough, indicate that Patrick was indeed alive.

Specially trained ONI operatives were tasked with questioning Major Davenport, who remained adamant of his story until he eventually broke down and told us what really happened. So Patrick was out single handedly fighting the covenant while searching for his brother, and in the mean time, David and Elizabeth were paired with Kristine-108 and Jeremy-050, and the new Spartan Team Omega was released to Prometheus Colony against my recommendation. I suggested they be put through Psi-ops before being returned to the front to make sure they wouldn't compromise the mission.

It is suggested that during this time, Patrick used a borrowed Pelican dropship to board and steal a Covenant frigate, and he moved ships several times on his movements while he tracked his brother.

On Prometheus, the Spartans caught wind of another Spartan being on planet, and immediately assumed it was Patrick. This was supported by a transmission received by Lieutenant Colonel Cord, before his unfortunate death at the hands of the covenant, though much of it was garbled, it said a Spartan was there to help. A single, loan Spartan.

It is believed by myself and others without a doubt that Omega Team followed Patrick to the covenant ship, which launched a shuttle one hour before the ship collided with the Covenant Flagship. We believe this shuttle contained Spartan-022.

So, after the battle, it can be assumed that Spartan-021 may have been on board the Covenant Flagship, and so, when the wounded covenant CCS-class cruiser escaped into Slipspace, in contained anywhere between four and six Spartans, as well as a possible seven marines.

Unfortunately, samples of Patrick-022's armor were also discovered in the debris field, which points to a more likely three to four Spartan's on board the ship when it jumped to Slipspace.

I can say, without a doubt, that if it hadn't been for the actions of the Spartans, Prometheus would have been glassed long before the war's end.

Even now, with the disappearance of well known heroes such as Admiral Cole, on July 28, 2543, and Spartan-117 "John" in late December of 2552, it is those heroes who weren't know to the public that grab my attention the most.

Of Course Spartan 117 and Admiral Cole's achievements were well publicized, and their effect on morale was enormous, but it is the unsung heroes who we have to thank for their exploits, much like the Spartan III's of Alpha and Beta company who gave their lives on K7-49 and on Pegasi Delta, because without them, this war would have most likely been considerably shorter.

Though the search for the Spartans, Patrick, Michael, David, Elizabeth, Kristine, and Jeremy, as well as the seven marines, Samantha Mackenzie, James Travis, Kim Cheng, Joseph Newman, Carl Reilly, Gregory Burge, and Treyvon Cole, has been called off, I have been searching through old classified files.

I've sent you this message because I know you are similarly looking into the fate of Spartan-117, and was hoping that you would release anything you find in terms of the missing soldiers. I know that there is doubt as to the survival of the soldiers, especially after being followed into Slipspace by thirteen covenant ships, but even if they have died, I'll sleep easier at night knowing what's happened to them. I've recently come across some encrypted files pertaining to Spartan-III's that included a footnote, it seemed gibberish at first, but upon closer examination, I learned that it was in fact pertaining to my missing Spartans.

I'm requesting permission to access these documents, as well as any information you come across in your search of the missing legend himself.

On another note, though somewhat related, I was wondering about your decision as to whether or not you would be starting the search for Catherine Halsey and the remnants of the Spartan-III leadership.

Though I personally have seen her memorial plaque, you and I both know she wasn't on Reach when the covenant finally finished with it. I, and I'm you as well, have seen the transmission received by Sir Lord Terrance Hood from Halsey herself, quite some time _after_ Reach was glassed.

The message originated from Onyx, the home base of the Spartan-III's, and Hood sent Spartans there. I can only hazard a guess to say that with all of them missing in action it would be smart to see if the Spartans and Halsey could be located.

With the human Covenant war ended, I can only begin to think of the growing insurgency that will rise to combat the weakened UNSC, and having a few surviving super soldiers around would probably be helpful.

I hope you'll get back to me soon, old friend, I fear time may be of the essence. From my desk, dated 3rd January, 2553.

-With Regards

CODENAME: WATCHMAN

OFFICE OF NAVAL INTELLIGENCE (SECTION-III) \\\OPERATOR #:

SO1

1300 HOURS, JULY 22, 2552 (MILITARY CALENDAR) \

UNSC _D__OWNWARD __S__PIRAL_, SYNCHRONUS MARS ORBIT

(ABOVE NEW LEGASPI)

/END FILE/

/SCRAMBLE-DESTRUCTION PROCESS ENABLED/

Press ENTER TO CONTINUE.


End file.
